


Until I find you

by shamelessllamapeanutthing



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Slow Burn, Smut, Teacher Yuuri, Unhappy marriage, Victor/Oc - Freeform, Yurio is Victor's son, cause they are endgame, lawyer Victor, not between victor and yuuri, someone needs to hug all of these boys, student Yurio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:15:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23792974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamelessllamapeanutthing/pseuds/shamelessllamapeanutthing
Summary: Victor Nikiforov has a well-paying job, a charming wife, and two over-achieving kids who love him with all their hearts. He has never felt more empty in his life.Yuri Plisetsky is done with his school's shit, wants to bone his hot, new Maths teacher, and kill his mom. Oh, and take his sister to Disneyland with his own money. That's not unreasonable, is it?(AKA the one where the father and son meet the loves of their life and collectively make everything harder for everyone involved.)
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 187
Kudos: 380





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am trying a lot of new things here, hope you all like it. 
> 
> This is unedited because I really should sleep now but Imma get to it soon enough. Sorry for all the mistakes beforehand.

Victor sighs as the key finally slots into the lock on his third attempt, something just short of relief making his shoulders sag. He has to rest his head against his door and allow his blurring vision to focus before he can take the next step of twisting the door knob and entering the house. His head swims in the way only crushing exhaustion can make it so, and he has long given into the sensation blanketing him as if it is an old friend he has learned to hate.

He hopes Angelina has fed the kids already, because if she hasn’t, he’d have to down two shots of black coffee just to remain standing on his feet long enough to order take out and that would snatch another night’s sleep away from him.

Something he really needs at this point.

Opening the door, he pastes a vaguely not-dead looking smile on his face, and hopes his staggering footsteps aren’t shadows of blissed-out half-drunk stumbling he is too busy to actually afford these days. Yuri doesn’t like it when he catches sight of Victor on the edge of collapsing. It makes the teenager squirm and feel like he’s not doing nearly enough to help support the family and Victor doesn’t want any of his children to feel that way.

Plus, Yuri’s doing all he can. Money is something the Nikiforov-Plisetsky household has more than enough of. Yuri doesn’t need to work, what he needs is to stay home with Annushka when neither Victor nor Angelina are there and he does that pretty well, as it is.

Taking off his coat and hanging it up, he walks towards the living room, where he can already tell his son and daughter are by the loud volume of the cartoon they have playing on the TV. Yuri insists they aren’t cartoons, but dubbed animes. Victor, for the life of him, can’t figure out the difference.

Victor remembers when Angelina was heavily pregnant with Annushka they had been worried about how Yuri would adjust with having a younger sibling. He had been having a lot of behavioural issues then that had worsened after Nikolai, Angelina’s father, died. Contrary to their expectations, Yuri slid into the role of a doting brother with utmost ease. While his tempers are still a freely swinging pendulum, he is protective, caring and soft around his five years old baby sister. Victor is quite proud of him.

Presently, the two are cuddled up on the mattress Yuri must have dragged out of his bedroom, their backs resting against the sofa they are propped up in front of. Annushka giggles as a wild orange haired character on the screen gets kicked in the face by a girl half his size. Yuri has an arm around her but is otherwise distracted by his phone. If Victor remembers right, they told him yesterday that the show was called ‘Bleach’.

“Hello, my loves.” Victor croons, and sounds dead-beat to himself. He watches as Yuri bites back a wince at his tone, plasters a scowl on his face and turns around to glare at him. Annushka is jumping on his lap, excitedly making grabby hands at Victor but doesn’t try to budge out of Yuri’s hold.

All of a sudden, Victor feels the weight on his shoulders get heavier, and they hunch up an inch as if to support it. There’s a question in his son’s disappointed green eyes that he doesn’t have an answer to and instinctively he knows Angelina isn’t home.

He doesn’t know why every day he hopes differently.

“Did you eat?”, he asks, keeping his tone light for the sake of his daughter. He ambles closer to the two, fully intent on going and lifting Annushka into his arms, but his steps stagger to the side, seemingly having a mind of their own and _oh…_

Once he sinks down on the couch, he remembers how his body aches, and how he probably won’t be able to stand up without help now.

“We did.” Yuri answers, and taking pity on him, allows Annushka to crawl up the couch and into the crook of his arm. By the slight proud jut of Yuri’s jaw Victor can tell he made dinner and that Angelina couldn’t be bothered, as usual.

He doesn’t comment on it, just tiredly strokes Annushka’s thigh and lets himself revel in her wet, sloppy baby kisses. She babbles about her day at the pre-school, blue-green eyes wide and intent in a fashion adorably like Victor when he was younger. He barely manages to nod at the appropriate times, head feeling like lead and mouth trembling because this isn’t the sort of life he wanted.

As Victor nods in and out of the one-sided conversation his daughter isn’t allowing to be thwarted by his inattention, he feels the couch dip next to him and barely opens his eyes before a glass of water is thrust under his nose. He nods at Yuri and grabs it, grip so lax Yuri hisses and curses at him under his breath, but holds the glass up himself and allows Victor to drink from it.

Victor doesn’t know when he dozes off but he does remember Yuri saying something about how its way past Annushka’s bedtime and extracting her from his arms. He doesn’t protest, neither does she and before Yuri has even left the room he is out like a light.

He remembers waking up, however, to a loud screeching voice and stinging eyes. He is sitting up before he is fully awake, rubbing his face and half-heartedly pleading with Angelina to stop screaming. She seems to notice his discomfort and complies.

When he opens his eyes fully he notices her fully made-up face, lips tinted berry and cheekbones shimmering with a graceful sweep of cold, silver highlighter. He remembers when he used to be enamoured by her beauty.

By her, in general.

“Where were you?” He asks. He doesn’t want to hear her answer though, mostly because he can tell what it’s going to be, but also because a part of him, jaded, loathing, and begging for a reason to end this, doesn’t believe her anymore.

He doesn’t receive an answer, but a familiar keyring hits his chest. He looks down at it and realises it’s his.

“You left the keys in the fucking lock, Victor!”

His eyes widen and he gets her rage now. That was risky, irresponsible. There was a robbery two houses down just a week ago, _how could he?!_

An apology rests on the tip of his tongue but he can’t word it, mostly because he is so _angry_ at her. This was his fault, completely. He made a mistake, he isn’t denying it but what about what has lead up to him falling so low he can barely keep himself awake long enough to open the door and get into his house? What about how she is never there anymore, not Victor’s partner, not his wife but a deadweight? What about how she barely looks at Yuri, so much so that he is convinced his mother hates him? What about how this was never what he, what _they_ , wanted their life to look like?

He is so angry but he doesn’t want to start another screaming match. He really, really needs to sleep tonight.

So he turns his back to her and curls up on the couch. Someone removed his shoes and draped a blanket on him, and he knows it was Yuri. Behind him, Angelina loses it in an angry growl that spells nothing but cold shoulders for the coming week and Victor knows he’s being a dick. He endangered their house, their children but Victor’s also convinced she doesn’t care anyway.

He can’t apologise to this woman. He owes an apology to his children, to himself, even, but not to this woman. She doesn’t care about them.

“We will talk about this in the morning.”, she says, voice icy as Victor is used to these days and he can hear her heels clacking on the floor as she makes her way upstairs, imagine her fluffy blonde hair flouncing behind her head, a mirror-image of Yuri if there ever was. In the morning he will curse himself for dragging this out, for subjecting himself to the couch, for _leaving the goddamned keys out in the first place_ but for now, he allows his pride to climb up his throat and make it clench into painful but liberating knots. He doesn’t owe her anything.

… except for tonight’s sleep it seems, for now that he is awake it doesn’t seem like he will go back to sleep.

His body still aches, eyes still sting, but Angelina’s heated words have made him restless. He knows the insomniac in him is crowing in victory. He won’t sleep again tonight.

He sits up after what feels like hours of laying in the same position, he can’t tell because he doesn’t have the time. When he does fish his phone out of his pocket and watches as the screen lights up, he curses himself again. It is 3:12, which means the keys had been dangling outside for four hours.

He can’t believe his stupidity.

Stumbling on to his feet, he makes his way to the kitchen. Yuri had left the dishes unwashed and on autopilot as he presently is, he doesn’t spare it one thought before he gets to them. An empty packet of instant popcorn in green chilli flavour has been discarded on the countertop, probably Yuri’s midnight snack as he grapples with homework. Victor takes the wrapper and puts in the bin, pours himself another glass of water and heads to his son’s room.

The lights from his room spill out into the darkened hallway as was expected and Victor takes a minute to let another wave of disappointment roll off of him.

Depending on when Angelina decides to leave, Yuri finds himself saddled with Annushka duty. Victor knows for a fact that he has had to take her to football practice with him sometimes, and that he hates how his classmates jeer at him for the same. Victor knows how Yuri always helps Annushka with her own homework, no matter whether their mother is home or not. The kid was always a loner, never had much of a social life but Victor feels guilty nevertheless. They have tied the teen down with a child already and if Yuri ever even wanted to go out more, he probably finds himself unable to now.

Angelina has a strict no-closed-doors policy in the house. It’s another rule that has caused a lot of fights between the mother and son, but if there’s someone Yuri’s legendary stubbornness falls short in front of, it’s his mother. Victor always tries to honour Yuri’s personal space anyway, and knocks. 

The blonde looks up from where he is sitting on his study table, pouring over books so thick they remind Victor of his law school text books and he wonders what any high schooler has to do with such intimidating looking tomes. Yuri simply looks away, it’s enough of an invitation.

Victor has barely crossed the threshold into the teen’s irritatingly cluttered room when Yuri asks:

“Is she home then?”

“Yeah.”

Brows scrunching, Victor sniffs the air, wondering how he didn’t notice it as soon as he entered. The thick, heavy stench of a cigarette burning in a closed room sits heavy on his nose, and he sneezes. He gazes at Yuri in what he hopes is disappointment but knows is mere disbelief.

He had a child by the time he was Yuri’s age and he isn’t old enough to have convinced himself a cigarette is the end of his kid’s future.

Does that make him a bad father? He will think about it come morning.

His eyes make out the bud smouldering between Yuri’s fingers and like every other time he found himself unsure in any matter relating to Yuri or Annushka he digs his nails into his palm for not knowing how to parent properly. How can he guide his children well when he can’t sort out his own life? When he feels it right down to his bones that he is always going to be too young, too naive and not experienced enough to ever be the great dad he himself never got the chance to know?

_He is so tired._

“That isn’t good for you.”

“Don’t shit on my coping mechanisms when you’ve basically left me here to raise a kid at sixteen without even getting to have the sex that comes beforehand.”

A ghost of a smile flits across Victor’s face. The words are barbed, but the tone is free of accusation. Yuri got his humour from his mother.

“I am trying, Yura.” He says, anyway.

“But you’re not doing what you should be doing.”

Exactly what Yuri wants him to do, the kid has never said. They both know, though.

“It won’t really make a difference in anyone’s lives.” The kid grouches further and Victor gives in and wraps his arms around his son. His shoulders are getting broader, his hair is getting longer, but his voice is getting wearier and they are both spreading themselves thin as can be to accommodate Angelina and her habits. Every time Victor remembers how much it’s eating away at Yuri he wants to hug him tight and never let go.

“Annushka would miss her.”

Yuri doesn’t refute the statement because he truthfully can’t. A child is easy to win over and Angelina makes up for her lack of attention with pretty toys and colourfully wrapped candy. It’s a shadow of the devoted and loving mother she once had been and all it does is pull the silken ribbons tying them together tighter around Victor’s throat, as she kisses their daughter and then kisses him, breathing shallow hope into his heart that they may one day manage to salvage their marriage.

His words are heavy in themselves though for it’s the first time he has agreed with Yuri’s implication that he doesn’t want her around anymore. The kid seems stunned by his admission too for his mouth has dropped open and Victor, instead of attempting disaster-control is feeling faint trickles of wry amusement.

This night has pulled apart more layers than Victor dared shed ever since the day fifteen-year-old Angelina told stupid, careless, fourteen-year-old him that she was going to be the mother of his child.

_He is so fucking tired._

“What subject is that?” He nods towards the big book open on Yuri’s desk.

The blonde turns around, puts out his cigarette and takes a second to compose himself- _and it’s painful, painful, painful that Yuri has started to measure and filter his words around Victor-_ before he turns back to Victor and grumbles to him that it’s Maths. 

“Got a quiz tomorrow.” He adds.

“And you’re actually studying for it like you’re supposed to?” Victor cocks a brow playfully. What he isn’t expecting is the soft flush of pink on Yuri’s cheekbones. He feels his mouth grin, and registers amusement.

“Don’t wanna disappoint Mr. Katsuki.” He mumbles. Victor finds it adorable but he doesn’t think he will survive trying to hug Yuri Plisetsky for the second time in under a week so he doesn’t.

He hums questioningly instead, for he has never heard that name before.

“He was brought in after Ciao Ciao retired six months ago. He is not too awful.”

“That’s nice.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

Victor shrugs. He is, and he can’t do anything about it.

Yuri simply tuts his tongue.

“Go bother your wife. I have stuff to do.”

He clearly does, so Victor leaves. Neither of them comment on how he’s definitely not going anywhere close to his wife.

_So, so tired._

_…_

Victor wakes up to the alarm in his phone set to ring at 5:30 and cricks in his shoulder that make him wince.

He had fallen asleep around four and quickly accepting he actually got a near-decent amount by his usual standards last night, he is on his feet, massaging his shoulders as he heads to their bedroom. This is the easiest part of the day. His body never has any problems waking up if he has caught over two hours. He only feels the effects of his unhealthy habits as the day progresses.

He opens the door to their room and registers Angelina passed out on the bed with not a care in the world. He rolls his eyes, forgoes leaving her water and aspirin and disappears into the bathroom, knowing he has half an hour to clean up and get to the gym before he has to drive back and bring the kids to school by 8. Then he has to come back, shower and leave for work by 9.

He would buy Yuri a car if the kid wasn’t insistent on never learning to drive properly.

All of this _she_ is going to sleep through, of course.

…

Victor is swamped. The day turns out busier than any work days in the past few months. He has always been very organised about his job, never letting anything pile up so he doesn’t really know how this happens, but he tells himself it’s just his luck and throws his full concentration into the case file he is presently studying.

Feltsman Corps is basically looking to get away with what can be called zero liability in the case of any deals or business advents falling through. Put word for word as what it is, it is something that would immediately render any contract void on the cause of unfair liability and undue advantage reaped by one party and Victor knows he has his work cut out with this client. It will be a challenge to get through all legal stipulations and form a legal policy here but he has never backed down from a well-paying opportunity and he never, ever will.

Making money is the only thing he is good for, and he’s not going to fall short on that end as well.

Just as he is struggling to get that sorted, his phone rings. Too absorbed to notice it was his personal cell and not his work phone, he picks up and spells out his usual introductory greeting.

“Good morning, Mr. Nikiforov. This is Grace from River High.”

Victor groans. He knows he should be worried but he has been called in by the Principal one too many times to be surprised by Yuri’s antics and he wishes this phone call could be delayed by a day. He really is swamped.

Plus, Yuri’s behaviour has improved significantly in the past six months. It was clearly stated the last time he went in that the boy had mellowed down and the principal, Ms. Okukawa, encouraged him to continue with whatever changes he had made around the house or in his upbringing, except he hadn’t made any changes and when he questioned his son he was just told school wasn’t hell anymore.

“What is it?” He sits back already knowing that if, who he assumes to be, the receptionist is calling he’ll have to go to personally see the teacher concerned this time.

“I will like to confirm you are listed as the second number to be called for student Yuri Plisetsky. The first one is Mrs. Angelina Plisetsky who I assume is your ex-wife? She didn’t pick up.”

Victor thinks the receptionist must be fairly new, because everyone in the school is well acquainted with three facts given the sheer number of calls made every month.

  1. Victor and Angelina aren’t separated. 
  2. Angelina never picks up.
  3. He is always the one to be approached when it comes to Yuri. 



“She is my present wife. We just have different last names and yes, I am Yuri’s father and guardian. What is it?” He sighs out. He hates new employees who don’t do their research right.

Or maybe he is just grouchy today.

“Ms. Okukawa has requested an urgent meeting with you after school hours, sir. It will be great if you can come as soon as classes end, at 15:00 stat.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thank you. Have a good day, sir.”

He hangs up, places his head in his hands and wonders if he should down his third cup of coffee for the day.

…

He smiles at the red-haired receptionist at River High, who nods at him and doesn’t return it, instead directing him to what he is sure is not the Principal’s office. All of a sudden, Victor feels the need to fiddle with his collar and the urge is completely foreign, but so is the wave of anxiety that has clenched around his heart. That looks like a big fucking _hall_ and when Grace holds the door open he glimpses an honest-to-God round table set up with faces he doesn’t recognise flanking the Vice Principal on both sides. Ms. Okukawa is nowhere in sight. 

He tamps down on the flair of nerves, squares his shoulders and shuts the door behind himself.

…

By the time Victor exits the conference room an hour and a half later, he is ready to cry, and he _really_ isn’t much of a crier.

He bites his lip and glances down at Yuri, who meets him outside. The building is empty around him and Victor feels that if he says a word to Yuri here it will be echoed around campus and bared for everyone to hear and pick at and his parenting skills will only be put to question again.

Yuri won’t meet his eyes and he can see the boy’s lower lip trembling but for once in his life, Victor can’t find a shred of concern to spare. He is too angry, too mortified to want to say anything to Yuri just now.

That was a meeting the entire board sat in on. That was a meeting in which he was told his son was turning into some sort of a pervert who drew highly inappropriate pictures of himself with his teachers and passed them around. Terms like ‘sexual harassment’ ‘delinquency’ and ‘rape culture’ had been thrown around so much Victor can’t see beyond them anymore. He had been completely blind-sided, not knowing what the original picture was or when it had been drawn and spread. After ninety minutes of having blank-faced men with stentorian voices telling him his son had basically committed an act of molestation against a teacher, questioning the atmosphere he was being raised in, prying into why his mother always appeared to be out of the picture, and passing snide comments about their age at the time of Yuri’s conception he is experiencing a bitter coil of anger that keeps him from opening his mouth or even trying to make eye contact with Yuri.

He doesn’t know where he went so wrong in his parenting. He doesn’t know why Yuri would do something like this but he does know that he wants to erase the past hour and half from his life. He has never felt like more of a failure.

The weight of the realisation that he just might have ruined his son’s life by allowing him to grow up in an environment always taut with tension and abandonment issues is too much of a burden to be borne alone and his hands are trembling.

“Papa…” Yuri breathes, and the vulnerability in his tone only angers Victor more because what right does he have, to sound so down-trodden when he was the one drawing pornographic images of teachers and passing them around?

“Keep your mouth shut.” Victor growls and Yuri, to his credit, doesn’t look surprised given Victor has never used that tone with him before.

“I want to see Mr. Katsuki and apologise. They said you would know where to find him.” He mutters and Yuri simply nods before pirouetting on an ankle and stiffly starting to walk down the hallways to their left. For a second, Victor wants to pull him back and shake him by the shoulders, demand how he thought that was an okay thing to do but he doesn’t want the tag of abusive dad attached to him along with ‘negligent’ and ‘promiscuous’, so he doesn’t and simply follows the teen in silence.

Walking in front of him is his child and he would unflinchingly die for him. He and Annushka are Victor’s pride and joy, pretty much his sole reason for existence. It is true they didn’t want a baby when Angelina got pregnant, but who does, at fourteen? After Yuri was born, though? Victor did everything in his power to give him the best life he could offer him. Angelina did too, up until a few years ago at least. They were just fourteen but they had tried so fucking hard and occasional stepping out of the line Victor could understand. He wasn’t a stellar student himself but to have allegations like these levelled against his baby, his Yuri, breaks his heart so painfully he doesn’t feel capable of dealing with the emotion at all. So he reverts to anger and sticks with it. 

He will need to cool down before he speaks to Yuri or he knows he will end up saying something that would butcher their relationship and they don’t need that.

His eyes are tearing up again and by the time they stop in front of the door to a classroom, he has had to rub his face clean twice.

Yuri still doesn’t look at him.

He knocks twice before sliding the door open and Yuri tries to shrink away only prompting Victor to place a heavy hand behind his neck and pulling him forward.

“Mr. Katsuki?”

The black haired man sitting behind the teacher’s desk looks up at him and okay, wow, Victor’s brain pulls his self-thrown pity party to a halt for a second to admire the deep mahogany undertones in his big brown eyes. He has never come across a colour that soulful.

The man smiles up at Victor before he catches sight of the teenager by his side and the curve of his lips falters. Victor bites back a wince but is surprised however, when the smile brightens a second later. Katsuki’s eyes are steady.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Nikiforov. Grace called me to say I should be expecting you. If you could give us a minute, Yuri?” He gestures for Victor to take a seat in the chair he has drawn up to face his own from across the table. Victor feels Yuri nod and lets go of his nape, before walking in and shutting the door behind himself.

The click of the wood sliding into frame feels more final than it should.

Shooting Katsuki an unsure smile, Victor takes a seat in the chair designated to him. This time he doesn’t stop himself from fiddling with his collar. He can’t really meet the big brown eyes watching him carefully and he decided to focus on his knuckles as he laces his fingers together and places his hands on the table in front of him.

He fools no one, and the man just produces a bottle of water from behind the table and offers it to him. Nerves fraught, Victor takes it, intending on greedy mouthfuls but settling with small, kitten-sips.

“Mr. Katsuki I am terribly sorry. I don’t know why Yuri would ever do something like this and I don’t know how to apologise for how uncomfortable this must have made you. You have all the rights to be angry with Yuri and even punish him. I won’t challenge you on your decision. I know I don’t really have much to offer as proof but I assure you my son has never had any malicious intentions towards you. He quite likes you…” Victor trails off, because he didn’t prepare for what he wanted to say and now, all of a sudden, his vocabulary has shrunk to a grade-schooler’s.

Mr. Katsuki is still smiling. “I know.” He says simply.

Victor’s confusion must be evident on his face for the teacher elaborates.

“I know Yuri has no wrong intentions towards me or anyone and I am very glad he likes me. The boy really needs someone to be in his corner at this school. I was hoping I could get him to feel a little more comfortable and easy around me and I am happy I succeeded, somewhat.”

Victor is still watching the man’s face in confusion. He is noticeably younger than Victor, possibly by three to four years.

“I know he has had problems with some other teachers in school but it’s never been anything major. He hasn’t ever done anything like this before.” And Victor doesn’t know why he says that because this isn’t what Mr. Katsuki meant and he knows it, _he knows it,_ but he really can’t get a grip on the man’s behaviour. He entered expecting a scene like in the conference room and this wasn’t it.

Katsuki shakes his head and his eyes are narrowed now. He takes a deep breath, almost as if steeling himself for a particularly difficult conversation and tries again.

“Mr. Nikiforov…-”

“Victor, please.” He can’t help interrupt but he has grown sick of being called that. Too many times today, those words have curled out of mouths twisted in bitterness and he doesn’t want to hear them anymore.

“Victor, may I give you a piece of advice?”

Victor nods.

_… and Katsuki is smiling again._ It’s smaller than the grin he gave Yuri but his eyes aren’t narrow with faint irritation now so that has to count for something.

There’s something comforting about that smile. Victor can see why Yuri likes Mr. Katsuki, or more importantly, can’t see how anyone won’t.

Not that he condones what Yuri did, not at all.

“When you leave here, don’t scold Yurio.” Victor’s eyebrows rise, whether at the suggestion or the nickname, he isn’t sure. “Take him out, maybe for ice cream or whatever he likes and talk to him. He is probably very scared after everything that happened today and he needs you.”

“I don’t think he deserves ice cream.”

“Doesn’t he, though? He had his privacy violated over harmless infatuation that most teenagers experience towards their teachers. He more than deserves ice cream.”

If Victor was confused before, he is completely flabbergasted now. There is a thin but vibrant tendril of _something_ running down his spine that feels warm, however and he clutches to it.

Later, he will realise that something is relief, because he has heard so many awful things about Yuri already that the mere suggestion that whatever happened today could be _that simple_ makes his shoulders sag.

For now, he leans against that feeling and indulges his confusion, frowning at the young, Japanese teacher. He notices the man has three piercing on his right ear, two on the upper cartilage and one in the lobe. The green studs he wears look nice.

Katsuki sighs.

“I am assuming you weren’t given all the details then.”

“I was told Yuri made some lewd drawings of you and spread them around.”

To his ever-growing surprise, Mr. Katsuki scoffs.

“Victor, he was cornered in the hallway, had his bag snatched, opened and searched for absolutely no reason other than the fact that three Senior students were bored. They took pictures and posted them on Snapchat before reporting it to Miss Menon. He didn’t spread anything around.”

Victor pauses, eyes finally meeting Katsuki’s enraged brown orbs. Realisation is slow, but it comes.

“Wait, wait they cornered him and snatched his bag…? I… what?” Victor has always prided himself on never being rendered speechless. “I- that is! Is he being bullied?”

Katsuki breaks eye contact and it’s a good reminder for Victor to reign his emotions in and school his expression, even as his heart thunders, tasting painful in his throat. He gulps and grabs the water bottle again, never remembering to open the cap and take a sip.

“I am positive he is. He refuses to admit anything. I think it’s the ego talking. He tries so hard not to be seen as a weakling that he is having trouble accepting someone hurt him. Not that it makes him weak, or that victims of bullies are generally weak. I don’t mean that at all!”

Mr. Katsuki’s carefully structured mask slips for a second and his eyes skit around the corners of the classroom, never sticking to one spot for more than a second. His mouth twists into a grimace, but soon enough he is covering up the slip up with an embarrassed scoff.

Victor feels less like a moron. It’s refreshing to see he’s not the only one being affected by all of this.

“I don’t know what to say. I had no idea. He never said anything.”

“Are you surprised he didn’t?” Katsuki asks. Victor doesn’t like the answer so he doesn’t give it to him.

“Yurio… is troubled, Victor. Have you ever considered the possibility that he might be depressed?”

“Aren’t we all?” Victor doesn’t intend for the tired scoff to slip past his lips, but he doesn’t attempt to distract from it. This is too much to deal with. Yuri is being bullied and his teacher thinks he might be suffering from depression. Victor wants to start bawling like a child, at this point.

“No.” Katsuki states firmly. “No, we aren’t all depressed, like we shouldn’t be and if Yurio, or even you, are having such problems you need to address them. Get treated. This is not okay.” 

“I never thought… maybe I should’ve known. I had all this time and I never picked it up… my son… I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, for one stop making this about yourself.”

Victor looks up at Katsuki’s displeased frown and for a second he wants to snap back. _What does this bastard know about the sort of day Victor has been having?!_

The realisation is abrupt and loud this time, like walking into a glass wall by mistake. Mr. Katsuki is right.

“I am sorry. I am overwhelmed. Yuri and Annushka are my entire life and I can’t deal with this properly. You’re right. I am sorry.”

“Annushka is your daughter, isn’t she? Yurio’s shown pictures of her to me, she is adorable. A perfect copy of you actually.”

Katsuki smiles at him, pitying. Victor hates that smile but manages to remember beggars really can’t be choosers.

… maybe in some ways he is exactly like Yuri.

He produces a half-hearted chuckle that sounds fake to his own ears. “Why do you call Yuri Yurio?” He tries at a light-hearted response again, fares marginally better but doesn’t give up because he doesn’t know what else to do.

This time, Katsuki chuckles lowly. His eyes crinkle in the corners, glasses slipping an inch down his nose. It is a decided improvement from the smile from moments ago.

“My own first name is Yuuri but with doubles u’s. It just felt weird to call him by my name.”

“Oh.”

Every single Yuri he knows looks gorgeous.

… and a beat later, _what?_

Before he can investigate that train of thought, a hand covers his.

“Listen Victor, I am not saying Yurio is depressed, I don’t know enough to say that for sure. The other teachers like to put down his behaviour as a dramatic cry for attention but the more I observe him the more I am convinced, Yuri _shuns_ attention. He acts so tough and mean towards all the other faculty members. I am fairly new. I don’t know all the history here, all I know is I was kind to him and he opened up. He greets me in the hallways and never troubles me in my class, does assignments on time and doesn’t backtalk and I think it’s because I am the only teacher here who’s not constantly demonising him.

“You can say he is nice to me because of this little crush he seems to have on me but I think this crush developed because he feels comfortable around me. One thing I can say for sure is he is starving for affection. I am not trying to question his parenting or your love for him. Sometimes children can end up with troubles despite having grown up in healthy, loving households. Trust me, I know, have firsthand experience of that. I am just saying he needs support and he needs to complain against the bullying if it is going to stop. Unless he does, I can do nothing.”

Victor finds himself nodding and filing away every single words for later inspection. He agrees, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Katsuki clearly isn’t done yet but he looks vaguely uncomfortable with what he wants to say next. Subconsciously, Victor sneaks out his thumb from under the Japanese man’s hand and gives a soft stroke along the skin between his thumb and forefinger.

“And as for the picture, I am not saying it was okay because it wasn’t but it was private. It wasn’t malicious. I am pretty sure all of us were infatuated with some or the other older figure as teenagers, it is completely normal” he pauses, winces and plows on. “Fantasising, desiring, it’s all normal. I am not going to be treating him any differently but I’d rather not be the one having the conversation with him.”

“What conversation?”

“The one that you will need to have with him in order to make him see why he shouldn’t expect anything to happen between him and me.”

Victor curses and feels like he should be a little more astute about this. Katsuki doesn’t seem like he’s judging him, however.

“Yeah, I will. I will. Thanks.”

Katsuki smiles and withdraws his hand. Victor returns it, but it is nothing more than a shadow of his usual confident grins. Considering what a sorry state Katsuki has already seen him in, he doesn’t let it bother him.

“Again, this conversation is the extent to which my help can go if you can’t get him to open up and talk about things. I wish you luck, Victor. Keep me updated, please.”

Victor stands up when nothing else comes to mind and offers his hand in a polite handshake. Yuuri Katsuki’s grip is firm and warm. Victor draws strength from it because his own reserves are nearly exhausted, nods his head once and thanks the teacher again before he is walking. The door is drawing steadily closer, behind which Yuri is waiting for him. Victor feels like he should be nervous, but his pace increases and before he knows he has thrown the door open, tears finally falling free.

Yuri looks up from where he is squatting against the opposite wall, eyes wide in surprise. They are red, Victor notices and his delicate hands are shaking. Victor feels a gaping chasm open up in his chest and when he throws his arms open, Yuri’s lips tremble before he rushes and wraps himself around Victor’s torso.

Victor can feel him sobbing against him, face smooshed into Victor’s chest and he hates himself for the tone he took with Yurio earlier.

_Yuri,_ he reminds himself, not stopping to examine the half-smile his tears are now running watery.

Behind them, Yuuri Katsuki finally allows himself a small, relieved grin before he shuts the door to give the father and son their privacy.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri meets his Otabae!!!!!  
> Sorry for any typos, I will read-through tomorrow morning.

“Do you still think I am not your son?”

Victor stops dead in his tracks, hands dropping to his sides with a flair of dramatics that has always come naturally to the man. His ice cream scoop topples out of the cone, and Yuri watches it melt against the heated concrete.

The teen knows Victor has been trying his level hardest to stay out of all sorts of hurtful territories. He hasn’t mentioned Angelina, or Yuri’s behaviour or the whole fiasco with the nude drawing even once. He simply belted Yuri into his seat and drove to the ice cream parlour Yuri can remember visiting a lot as a family right after they had just shifted into this city. Victor talked about all sorts of things and it would’ve been so easy to follow his lead, push Mr. Katsuki’s mortified expression out of his mind, ignore how _angry_ his father had looked earlier, it would’ve been _so easy_ if this parlour didn’t have so many memories attached to it.

The same kind old lady with gorgeous dyed red hair had asked him which flavour he wanted, and he had asked for vanilla-butterscotch and Victor had looked at him weird because he knew, of course he knew, Yuri didn’t like vanilla. Annushka got it every time they came here though, and then changed her mind mid-cone and demanded her ice cream be swapped with Angelina’s strawberry cream cheese. Their mother would just shake her head and swap the cones, letting Yuri finish it, content to watch her kids enjoy their treats.

Yuri got his ice cream and dragged Victor out of the parlour, back under the waning orange glow of the sun. He shut his eyes and tried to control the wobbling of his lower lip before he looked up at Victor’s confused face and gave voice to the question he had sat on for years.

_“What?”_

The hurt in Victor’s tone is frightening and Yuri wants to tell him it doesn’t matter, that he didn’t mean it like that, that it’s okay and Victor doesn’t have to answer except he did mean it and Yuri is not a liar.

“I heard you ask her back when we still lived in Russia. You asked her if she had lied about me being your son.”

Yuri doesn’t know why he is digging it out now. He is aware of the fact that if Victor was asked to tear his own heart open in exchange for his kids’ happiness, the man would. Yuri _knows_ Victor loves him, and suspects that is the entire reason it becomes all the more necessary to know if Victor still believes he is not his son.

Victor shakes his head, mouth open in a soft, astonished _o._ He doesn’t seem to be able to decide what he wants to say, and the anguish in his eyes tugs at Yuri’s heart, a clear reflection of the pain his features had displayed barely an hour ago when he left the meeting with the board. Yuri winces and tries for a joke.

“Like you both are _always_ loud, all the time.” It is lame but he is stressed. Victor at least has the grace to flush a little.

Yuri takes it for what it is and starts walking towards the car, Victor dazedly following because he’s a lot like a dog in that respect.

“We need to get Makkachin back from Chris.”

“Yeah, he will drop him home tonight.”

“How’d the dog show go?”

They get into the car, and Victor is functioning somewhat normally now that they aren’t discussing deep, searching topics. Yuri’s parents like to tell him he isn’t expressive enough, and he scoffs every time. He doesn’t even know how Victor Nikiforov and Angelina Plisetsky can look anyone in the face and call them inexpressive when both of them completely shut down conversation in the face of any emotions except happiness and anger.

They are so similar it’s scary and Yuri thinks it’s what’s lead to this.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to ask him.”

Yuri looks away.

Victor puts the car in gear, gives one cursory glance to check Yuri is buckled in and backs out of the lane. Yuri doesn’t think he will respond, doesn’t feel like asking again, and so is thoroughly surprised when Victor begins,

“Back then, I was so angry at the world Yuri.”

Yuri turns to his father, eyes watchful. He is fairly certain nothing Victor can say will hurt him. If there’s one thing Yuri has never doubted, its Victor’s devotion to him and Annushka. He wants an answer because he’s been curious ever since he first heard those words fall out Victor’s mouth. He can already tell no matter what Victor says, nothing will change in their relationship.

He wonders if this was assholey of him, to rub salt into what seems to be a gaping wound of Victor’s all to satisfy his own curiosity.

He deserves an answer and his parents’ trauma is none of his issues to help sort out. He is not their therapist, he tells himself. It doesn’t sit right in his mouth, the words don’t fit his reality, jagged ends poking out like a bad white lie.

“I was fourteen when you came around, it was the first time I had had sex. I wasn’t prepared to be a dad. That isn’t to say I don’t want you in life or I don’t trust your mother, I do. I was just so angry, and frustrated. I was overworked, I couldn’t remember the last time I had stopped to actually sit at the dinner table and have a decent meal when that argument happened… and it doesn’t excuse anything I know. It’s one of the most hurtful things I have said to your mother.”

“It broke her heart to know you think that way.”

“I don’t.” Victor turns to him, eyes vibrant in vehement denial. “I don’t think so. I was looking to hurt her, and it was very childish of me and I regret saying that to this day. You’re my son, and I love you.”

This is one of the moments where he might have responded in kind, except Yuri is busy marvelling at the loss of a weight he wasn’t aware he was carrying.

…

Yuri makes dinner that night, and he doesn’t mind. He enjoys cooking.

He makes chicken pasta in bechamel sauce, banana bread, and iced tea. It’s an odd combination, he knows but Annushka likes it and he likes it and really, the other two living in the house don’t really matter given they barely eat with them anyway.

He knows tonight is going to be different when both Victor and Angelina come down the stairs with pleasantly relaxed shoulders, and easy smiles. Angelina coos at where Annushka is clinging to Yuri, cheeks smeared with sauce and Yuri avoids looking at her as he hands the baby over, instead turning to follow Victor to the fridge.

“What’re you two playing at?” He demands, because he isn’t used to this and yet at the same time he _knows_ in his gut how this is going to end. They’re going to blow up in each other’s faces at the end of the week or so, and Yuri would rather they avoid each other as much as possible, then have such huge fights that they make Annushka cry.

“Adulting,” and Yuri is fairly sure that isn’t a word. “Something we should’ve done ages ago.”

Yuri scowls but he doesn’t know how to say, “Please don’t be nice to your wife” without sounding like a complete dickhead.

Dinner is a strange affair, but with years of practice under their belt, they manage to be somewhat nice to each other. Annushka is happily babbling where she has moved her perch to Victor’s arms and Yuri knows she would have been told off for not behaving at the table if this wasn’t such a rare affair that her enthusiasm and surprise is breaking their hearts.

“Mama, Yuri try make cake!” She exclaims happily, tearing off a chunk of her slice of banana bread and depositing the fistful on Angelina’s plate. She chuckles and the teen watches as her sharp green eyes soften with a hint of melancholy as she observes Victor trying to explain to Annushka why she shouldn’t play with her food.

“My food, I play!” Annushka insists obstinately, soft silver curls bouncing around her head as she shakes it to emphasise her authority over her food. Yuri watches Victor melt into a puddle while struggling to keep his expression stern.

‘Mmm this is delicious Yura.” Yuri turns to his mother. “I didn’t know my little boy was such an amazing chef.”

… and it’s that easy, it’s always been that easy for her with her warm green eyes, and little proud smirk to make Yuri scramble for her approval. It’s always been that easy for her to bring Yuri down to his knees, except she doesn’t care about that particular skill at all anymore.

Even so, Yuri finds himself spiralling back to similar scenes from years ago, when eight years old Yuri would nag her while she cooked to teach him how to make this or that and she would smile down at him and give him small portions of ingredients to thoroughly ruin. He’d still feel so proud of his monstrous, inedible creations when she’d pretend to taste his ‘food’ and moan as if Yuri’s weird, watery, extra spicy ‘dishes’ were gourmet meals from a seven star hotel, before saying, ‘I didn’t know my little boy was such an amazing chef.’

Yuri is tearing up, and _fuck_ , her eyes look exactly the same as they looked back then.

Yuri doesn’t want to lose either her or Victor.

…

Yuri is on his back, spread-eagled on top of his bedspread, scrolling through his Instagram feed when he comes across the picture.

By _@kenjirou.minami_

Yuri feels his lips tighten in a scowl.

The Japanese boy is kissing a girl in the picture and the number of heart emoticons in the caption doesn’t make it seem like he’s very opposed of commitment.

Figures, it was just Yuri Kenjirou didn’t want to commit to.

Yuri is not a crier, despite how the day has gone, _Yuri really isn’t a crier._ He hasn’t cried behind Kenjirou once in two months and given how his heart still feels like painfully burning lead in his chest every time the other boy is mentioned, he will tell you to be as proud of his achievement here as he is, _thank you very fucking much._

… because Yuri can’t remember being happy in a very long while, but the pain Kenjirou’s absence has left behind makes him fear that he just might not survive it.

He locks his phone, and then unlocks it, going to Spotify and clicking on the playlist which is simply titled with Kenjirou’s initials. He taps on the song he came here looking for, and Melanie Martinez’s _‘Play Date’_ starts playing.

Yuri won’t admit he listens to pop even under threat of torture, but the faithful four walls of his rooms aren’t snitches and it’s not even funny but Yuri is laughing all of a sudden, and he can’t stop.

He doesn’t want to think about how fucked up his mental state might be.

When Yuri looks away from his ceiling however many minutes _(hours, years, seconds maybe?)_ later, it’s because someone is swinging his door open. He already knows who it is, Victor would’ve knocked after all.

“Are you sleeping?”, she asks even though the song is still blaring from his phone, and his green eyes are fixed on hers.

“Yes.” He replies. She chuckles and Yuri rolls his eyes.

“Lost rock, paper, scissors did you?”

Angelina looks confused, and Yuri laughs again, ( _and this is worrying, fuck Yuri, stop laughing)_ , but it is obvious from the second Angelina walked in that she is nervous about something, thumbs twiddling together, eyes skittish and barbs about Yuri’s closed door completely absent from the conversation. She doesn’t want to say whatever she came to say, and she must have come to say something because she doesn’t pay Yuri any attention if she can avoid it.

He knows what’s coming next. He knows given what happened today, they probably think they need to ‘talk’ to Yuri about how inappropriate the drawing was.

Like he doesn’t know. Like he hasn’t been beating himself over it ever since he saw Mr. Katsuki’s big brown eyes darken with embarrassment and hurt the moment he saw that drawing. He _really, really_ didn’t mean for anyone to see it.

“We played no such game.”, she steps further inside and hesitates by his bed. Yuri shrugs a shoulder in invitation but doesn’t sit up.

“Then?”

“Had Annushka pick a finger.”

Yuri scoffs and he watches some tension fall away from his mother’s frame. He can’t decide how he feels about that.

“I know what you’re here to say. Mr. Katsuki is an adult, I am a minor, he is my teacher, I am a student, nothing will ever happen between us, its illegal and what I did was wrong. I have heard it all, multiple times. I know, don’t waste your breath. Just get to the point. Am I grounded or what?”

“No, you aren’t and yes, I was going to talk to you about that, on your dad’s insistence, of course.”

“You didn’t care enough obviously.”

Angelina sighs and Yuri counts it as a win, ignores the fact that it doesn’t feel like one.

“No, I was sure you already knew. Coddling you has always been more Victor’s style. I know my baby boy is smart enough.”

“That what you say to yourself to justify abandoning your own son?”

He doesn’t want to look at her face, so he unlocks his phone and opens up the first app under his thumb, Instagram. Kenjirou and his girlfriend stare unashamedly up at him. He considers hurling the device away.

“You haven’t been easy to exist around.”

Well, that’s true and Yuri is sort of proud of that.

“Ah, yes, because infidelity is such an emotionally draining pastime you can’t put in an ounce of extra effort with your son.”

Angelina doesn’t so much as flinch. He wasn’t expecting her to.

“I haven’t seen him once since that day.”

“I don’t believe you.” He isn’t sure how true that it but he doesn’t let it show. “Actually, why don’t you leave dad?!” … and he turns to her this time because it’s a question neither she nor Victor ever properly answer when it’s so obvious a simple signature from the two of them on a piece of paper would sort out all of their issues.

“I didn’t come here to take matrimonial advice from a sixteen year who has no idea how complicated relationships can be.”

In a way, Angelina’s cutting words are comforting. Yuri has no problems rubbing her fuck ups in her face when she herself is so crass around him. It is a liberty he will never have around Victor, who’s entire exterior is carefully hand spun into a safety net that doesn’t allow anyone to touch him.

… doesn’t allow him to touch anyone.

Yuri often wonders if he doesn’t get tired of himself sometimes.

“What did you come here for then? You didn’t come here to lecture me about today, and you didn’t come to tell me you’ve finally found a way to fix what you and he messed up, so why’re you here?”

“The teacher you drew porno of,” and _that_ makes Yuri wince. He glares at her, she pauses a moment to raise her brow. She might still be Yuri’s favourite parent if not for that one night in Moscow. “He thinks you’re being bullied.”

O _bjectively,_ Yuri knows a lot of things.

He knows pushing his parents to get a divorce is pretty fucking insane, but he doesn’t know what else to do and he can’t just sit and watch everything go to hell so despite how painful the thought is, he still does.

He knows Kenjirou didn’t promise Yuri anything, doesn’t owe him anything, but if he decides to face how pathetically quickly he fell in love with him, he’d hate himself, so he decides to hate Kenjirou instead.

He knows if he so much as smiles back at Mila someday, he won’t be all alone in school anymore but he tried that once with a blonde, Japanese boy before and got his heart so thoroughly broken that he doesn’t dare.

He knows what is happening to him is wrong, and he isn’t weak for being a victim but he doesn’t understand how to deal with others who _don’t know the same_ staring at him in the hallways more than they already do.

He knows what is happening to him isn’t exactly discrete, and that everyone sees, but so long as he doesn’t acknowledge he has been hurt he gets, to keep a shred of self-respect and really, that’s all he can ask for.

He knows in refusing to acknowledge he is being bullied, he is displaying cowardice of the worst kind but he doesn’t think his voice would cooperate if he ever even thinks of admitting the truth in front of someone. 

He knows Victor’s coddling approach is annoying but correct, because Angelina is wrong. Yuri has never been smart enough to make the right choice. He is a pathetic kid who thinks too much and says too little.

“Mr. Katsuki worries too much, it’s not like that. There’s nothing wrong at school.”

…

One of the initial motives behind speaking to Kenjirou was that his parents were divorced, and the kid couldn’t be happier.

Thing is, Yuri can remember a time he had both Angelina and Victor by his side, but he can’t remember a time where they had each other by their sides.

Victor was a great father, and a shitty husband.

Back then he had been a kid and when he saw Angelina trying to smother her tears after daily fights with Victor, he _hated_ his father… but then Victor would come back home and hug him and play carrom with him and Yuri was always torn between loving the father who did everything to put a smile on his son’s face or loathing the husband who couldn’t seem to go a day without making his wife cry.

Growing up, he noticed Victor didn’t hate Angelina and she didn’t hate him. However, where she was in love with him, he… just wasn’t. He had married the mother of his child, not the love of his life and it was killing her.

He was absent from her life, he didn’t especially care about her. The only time Yuri remembers Victor looking at Angelina with the same adoration he gave Yuri was when she was pregnant with Annushka. By the time Yuri was thirteen, he was starting to realise how humiliating that was.

It could have been easy if Angelina was as unattached to him as he was to her but she had fallen in love, he hadn’t and they had both essentially been children playing adult games without having once glanced at the rule book.

Yuri never uses the truth of their marriage to justify her affair, or her childish behaviour now but he can’t disregard what he has seen with his very own eyes every single day of his life. It’s funny really, how they both fucked up spectacularly on their ends, balanced each other out, and ultimately made it impossible for Yuri to pick sides, love one, hate another.

He suspects it would be a lot easier if that wasn’t so.

The only thing Yuri knows for sure is that he wants both of them in his life, and both of them happy, and that won’t happen if they remain married to each other. It’s the perfect time, Annushka is five, she is too young to be hurt, too old to forget either of them. They can co-parent, she’d adjust. Maybe if they meet the right people and learn to forgive each other, the two could even be friends.

It is _so_ simple and Yuri doesn’t understand why they don’t go ahead with it. He is certain it’s not out of love, neither of them love each other any more.

… but they love him and his sister, and Yuri just wishes they would stop perceiving them as the painful tethers holding them together.

…

The next day, school isn’t any different then usual.

Except Victor had kissed his forehead three fucking times before letting him go and that is still irritating him.

“Oi look! The _pussy_ got lost.” Yuri rolls his eyes and continues on down the hallway. He likes animal print, and these genii thought pussycat was a fitting nickname like the most cliche villains in any Y/A novel with no originality and a loud booming voice. He thinks they should go buy deodorant, really.

_(… and so what if he reads sappy Y/A crap? Its none of your business shut up.)_

“Forgot the way to the chink’s office?”

Yuri has responded aggressively to that particular slur used for Mr. Katsuki too many times before in the past to not have learned his lesson. He keeps his head down, even as his fists tense up.

“So? Is it like how they show in porn?”

Yuri knows better than to respond to these jerks but this is new, and he stutters to a halt. He resumes walking a millisecond later, but it’s enough invitation for the bitches.

“Does he beg for you to stop while you fuck half-eyes up his ass? Man, don’t these Chinese people do some freaky ass shit in bed?”

Mr. Katsuki isn’t even Chinese but he doubts they care.

“Spend a lot of time on gay porn sites, do you?” He throws behind his shoulder, because he can’t resist it. He is used to this, he _is_ but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get angry anymore.

“Need to be prepared for when I get my hands on your pretty dad. Tell me, think he could take me and Matthew here all at once?”

Yuri turns around at that. People have stopped on their way to the cafeteria for lunch hour to watch the scene unfold, and he hopes to at least put on a good show before he is inevitably dragged into detention. 

“Why don’t you ask you dads that instead? Last time I checked, they _love_ it when I piss in their mouths before pounding their asses till they bleed.”

Yuri has gone out of his way to avoid learning the names of these fuckers, it’s more respect than he’s willing to give them. He only knows them by their faces, and he’s never seen the guy scowling upfront of the group before.

He doesn’t get any longer of a glance either, because fingers are tightening around his arm. Someone shouts in protest and stunned, Yuri can’t tell if it’s him or Basic Bully 1. All he knows is that he is being dragged down the hallway, and away from the crowd by someone he is very unwillingly familiar with.

_JJ fucking Leroy._

“You’re on thin fucking ice, Plisetsky. Do you want to get thrown out of the school or what?” The man barks out at him, and it’s such a stark contrast from his usual cocky, airy, stupid-sounding tone that Yuri lets himself be dragged a couple of steps more.

He tries digging his heels in, but JJ is bigger and makes his way through life powered on sheer determination. He doesn’t let Yuri derail their progress to the cafeteria.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Saving your pathetic ass!”

It’s that more than anything that makes Yuri twist his hand out of JJ’s grasp and pull away staggering back a couple of steps and making JJ groan in frustration. There are significantly less people in this corridor than in the main hallway, but Yuri isn’t stupid enough to give even man an unnecessary show when he can avoid it, so he grudgingly turns around and ducks into the closest classroom, empty due to it being lunch hour.

JJ follows, and shuts the door behind him. Yuri is completely sure that isn’t allowed, but he is also sure JJ, school’s sweetheart, won’t be called out on it, whereas his throat would’ve been ripped apart for less.

“I can’t believe you thought that was a good idea.”

Yuri has never before even considered JJ could sound… _normal._

“Keep your ugly, annoying mug out of my business, Leroy.”

“Given how your business almost always ends up involving the entire school board, how about no?”

JJ is frowning, mouth pinched together in a threatening scowl, and it’s throwing Yuri off. He really, really never imagined JJ wearing anything but a cocky smirk on that irritating face.

“I know you like to think you’re fucking John Cena or someone, which, with that puny rat’s body of yours, I personally don’t see why, but you’re really not. You are one guy against all of them and you’ve already pissed off enough people on the staff to make sure they won’t even bother to check who was wrong before throwing you a suspension! Do you _enjoy_ having your dad called in and humiliated every other week?!” 

“What is it to you?! Why do you fucking care, asshat?!”

JJ snorts and Yuri shoves his shoulder because that guy is just this annoying.

“Oh, don’t delude yourself, I don’t. Call it extra credit.”

JJ doesn’t respond to his assault but his words are angry enough to convey his mounting frustration. Yuri feels a trickle of satisfaction. He likes people who are upfront about how much they don’t like Yuri. He doesn’t have to go poking and prodding around to guess their true intentions that way. 

“Mr. Katsuki set you up to it?” Because nobody else will.

JJ neither confirms nor denies it. Instead, he leans back against the door, eyes narrowing with an emotion Yuri can’t place.

“There are people here who care about you, Plisetsky.”

Yuri scoffs. Kenjirou’s toothy smile makes it to his mind and he valiantly squashes the image down.

“Where have they been all this time?”

“Right here, waiting for you to stop acting like none of us are worth your time, dipshit.”

( _‘Let me in, Yuri-kun.’)_

Certain things are easier to believe when cute Japanese boys say them.

JJ takes Yuri’s silence as some sort of a surrender and straightens with an exaggerated sigh.

“You’re eating lunch with us, come on.”

“Says who?” Yuri scowls. JJ is irritating, but his group of friends is sort of nice, as far as Yuri can tell. That still doesn’t mean he’s just gonna do whatever this dickhead says.

Or so he tells himself, he doesn’t really know how to proceed. Nobody has ever asked him to eat lunch with them before.

“Says Katsuki!” JJ snaps, _because, of course_ “They won’t target you so much if you don’t make it so easy for them.”

That makes Yuri’s heart stutter in his chest. His mouth falls open.

“Mr. Katsuki said that?”

JJ, who was holding the door open for Yuri, gives him a searching glance. His shoulders sag, and he shuts his eyes for a second. Yuri can relate, he knows he is a pain to deal with it.

“Of course, he didn’t. Do you think he ever would? It’s still the truth.”

“So it’s my fault?”

He has only ever _heard_ of victim blaming before.

“No, it isn’t but unless you actually admit somebody is doing something wrong to you, the burden of prevention does rest on you. So shut your trap and move on.”

“I am not going anywhere.”

“You’re being a dick.”

“Haven’t you checked? That’s my entire brand.”

JJ rolls his eyes, but there’s hint of a smile curling his mouth. Yuri doesn’t want to see his obnoxious smirk, ever, and thus vows to never crack another joke in his presence.

“You wanna go say that to your Aphrodite?”

Yuri tries to tamp down the blush that comes with the idea of Mr. Katsuki, no, _Yuuri_ being his Aphrodite, the centre of his desire, the most beautiful person to have touched his world, and finds it’s nearly impossible. JJ chuckles shamelessly, but says nothing, and well, small blessings.

“Don’t call him that.” Yuri grouches behind JJ before falling in step beside him, letting JJ take him to the cafeteria, a place Yuri has been avoiding since day one.

The table JJ leads Yuri to, is raucous and crowded. He can already recognise JJ’s girlfriend Isabella and Mila in the group. He vaguely knows the faces of all of them except one. There’s the Italian chic with the long black hair that the entire school knows Mila worships, and her ditzy brother. Emil Nekola is sitting next to them, a friend of JJ’s that talks and walks with the childish excitement of an eight year old which pisses Yuri off so much that he feels like he could very well put the kid’s head through a window.

“Oh, Yuri! Hi!” Mila notices them first, and waves them over like an idiot even when it’s obvious they’re fixing to sit down at that very table. Yuri feels like rolling his eyes, but checks himself in time, grunting softly in acknowledgement instead.

Leaning back in a chair, surrounded by people he never thought about having lunch with, he feels his heart rate picking up at the complete lack of hostility in the air. He isn’t used to this. He really isn’t.

… and _that_ is when he allows his eyes to run over the face of the one boy he can’t recognise. He has an undercut like JJ’s, which he carries a _lot_ better than the Canadian, and his eyes are darker than any Yuri has ever seen. A thin white shirt sits snug over his broad frame, sleeves rolled up to clasp around his defined biceps and he has been watching Yuri, just as Yuri has been watching him.

Yuri finds it’s difficult to look him in the eyes, and trails his gaze lower. The guy’s lips are very thick, but dark and Yuri thinks they quite suit him.

“Who’re you? Never seen you around.” Yuri shrugs. He wishes JJ had allowed them to stop for Yuri to grab a juice box. He wants something to do with his hands.

A broad palm, significantly bigger than Yuri’s, is extended towards him, and he looks up at the stranger. His dark eyes should be difficult to read, but aren’t. Almost out of instinct, Yuri puts his hand in his, and the resulting grip is firm, unyielding. That’s good. Victor always says you can judge a man by his handshake. Yuri never bothered to ask what handshake mean what, but this one feels nice enough.

“Hi. I am Otabek.”


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'know how it is, I WILL edit but tomorrow.

The next two weeks pass by in a blur Victor is all too used to, in which his complete attention is devoted to Yuri and Annushka, with the notable difference of the pleasant awareness that Angelina is at least staying home, taking the kids to and from school and helping with dinner and laundry. It allows Victor to catch proper sleep and take a second to actually breathe.

He doesn’t know how long it will last, he doesn’t expect a lot from his wife.

Fingers dance across his forehead, applying mild pressure and once again he is surprised to find there is no headache to relieve. A few extra hours of sleep he had become convinced he didn’t need seemed to be all he actually needed. He has grown so used to constant stress headaches that the absence of them makes him feel so light on his feet that he imagines if he spreads his arms, he will be able to fly.

The smile on his face is unconscious. This sweet light-heartedness, tinged with a bitter anticipation for the moment Angelina will become sick of actually being a mother again, cushions his hours at work so much so that he barely pays attention to the name of the client who is about to walk in, when the receptionist rings to relay the same that evening.

Imagine his surprise then, when Katsuki enters his cabin with a nervous, but genuine smile.

“Good evening, Victor.”

Victor is so surprised his reaction comes as a delayed, faint ‘hi’. If his face indicates how his mind has spiralled back to that dreadful afternoon at Yuri’s school all those days ago, Katsuki doesn’t comment on it.

Victor gives his head a shake, a real, physical shake and shoots to his feet like a child in the presence of his teacher. “Mr. Katsuki, good evening!”, he exclaims.

Katsuki’s smile becomes a tad more amused.

“Call me Yuuri, please.”

Victor remembers Yuuri stating he and Yuri shared names, and he isn’t sure if it’s the accent, but the way Yuuri pronounces his own name is slightly different from how they pronounce his son’s, with a harder emphasis on the u’s.

He rolls it around on his tongue in silence twice before he gets the hang of it, and says, “Of course, Yuuri. I wasn’t expecting you here today.” He gestures to the chairs set in front of his desk and picks up the phone to call for refreshments, sitting down himself.

“Clearly.” Yuuri grins and moves to take a seat in front of Victor. “… and I don’t understand why because I booked this appointment three days ago. You sure are a busy man.”

Victor is unaware of Yuuri booking an appointment with him, and is hence completely clueless as to _why_ he did. He doesn’t want to admit to his recent air-headedness however, so he plasters a smile on his face and does what he does best.

Pretends.

“Oh, I must have forgotten! It’s been hectic, lately.” He shakes his head. Yuuri simply cocks his own, however. Mahogany eyes, as intense as the first time they met his, race across his face and an eyebrow so well-picked it makes intense envy race through Victor is slowly raised. 

“You have no idea, do you?”

Victor isn’t stupid enough to continue lying, since Yuuri can call his facade as easily as simply asking him his reason for seeking legal counsel that every client has to mention when they first call the reception to book an appointment with any of the consultants, which is later relayed to them. Victor has no idea how he missed Yuri’s teacher’s name in his notes, but somehow he did and that’s that.

“I am sorry.” He grins sheepishly, hand still poised in the air with the receiver clasped in his fingers. He glances at it.

“To make up for it, I am going to order you the best sandwiches they keep here.”

Yuuri chuckles but doesn’t challenge him. Once he is done calling for some sandwiches and iced teas, he turns his attention back on to the younger male, who has removed his glasses and sits pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers, lips downturned. His exhausted expression completely belies the bright warmth in his eyes.

He has a button nose. Victor hadn’t noticed that before.

“How’s Yurio been?” He asks. Victor’s smile brightens.

“He is such a surly kid, it’s very easy to tell when he’s happy, you know and he has been doing better lately. For one, his cussing is more standard and not so particularly violent, now.”

Yuuri beams, and the stress lines haunting his face recede for a few moments.

“Right? I asked this other student to try to make friends with him and surprisingly enough, they seem to have hit it off.” 

Victor nods.

“I try to spend time talking to him everyday, or just playing chess. It used to be a nightly tradition before we… sort of, stopped.”

“I could never wrap my head around the game, no matter how hard I tried. Board games are not my thing.”

Victor notices an attempt to stall when he sees one, and remembering how patient and helpful Yuuri had been that afternoon, he doesn’t try to rush the man at all.

“More of a video game person?”, he offers conversationally.

Yuuri’s cheeks redden, as if he is embarrassed of the answer. Victor can’t help but think he looks adorable, and so much younger.

“Yeah.”, he admits, voice shy for some reason Victor can’t figure out.

“I wish I was, too. Yuri likes them so much better than plaid old chess.”, he chuckles, because as cute as Yuuri looks with his red cheeks, his hunched shoulders are too prominent for him to ignore how uncomfortable the man is.

Yuuri smiles in acknowledgement of his efforts and wrings his fingers together. Victor doesn’t have any water on hand to offer to him, so he skips that step and simply covers Yuuri’s hand with his own. He hasn’t forgotten how it had grounded him when Yuuri had made the same gesture that afternoon.

“You are going to have to tell me what’s wrong for me to be able to help you.”

Yuuri sighs and looks down, fingers the frame of his glasses and pulls it off, putting it down atop Victor’s table.

“I have no idea what to do right now, and Phichit, Phichit is my friend, he said I should contact a lawyer, just in case. I remember Yuri mentioned you were one and I…” he trails off and he is still not looking into Victor’s eyes. The lawyer doesn’t know what’s plaguing him, but he knows he very actively _doesn’t like it._

He suppresses the need to assure the younger man, and allows him to continue.

“It’s a person on the school board, and he has… pictures… of me.”

Victor frowns, because he knows where this is going and there’s nothing in the world he hates more than sexual offenders of any kind.

Yuuri’s neck snaps up, and his eyes meet Victor’s for one small moment before he is rushing to explain, free hand flailing wildly and brows furrowed. Victor wishes they’d hurry up with the tea.

“They… They are from years ago though! Because, you know, everyone does stupid shit in college! I didn’t even know he’d still have them, or that I’d ever come in touch with him again! Oh my God, this is all so stupid and if this gets out, I… fuck Victor, I can’t lose my job!”

“You won’t.” Victor quickly reassures him, even though he hasn’t learned anything useful to support said statement. For some reason, it seems important to show Yuuri someone is in his corner first. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”

“I _sent_ those pictures to him.”, he insists, and yes, okay, that complicates it a little more, but Victor isn’t going to tell him that.

“Like I said Yuuri, everything from the beginning, please.”

Yuuri takes another deep breath, attempts to look at Victor and fails, clearly deeply ashamed. This seems to be a pattern with him and Victor is lost as to how to break out of this loop.

“Adam Gold. We went out in college for a while and we exchanged pictures back then. I even let him make videos, like an idiot. I didn’t know he was going to save them all like this though! He cheated on me and dumped me after a while and that was it. Last month he joined the board and started coming on. Strong. I wasn’t interested in anything and I told him but he won’t back down. He got violent with me last weekend when he found out the pub I usually go to, and followed me there and the only reason I got away was because there were other people nearby. He came to meet me next morning, sort of tried to apologise. When I kept saying no, he showed me those pictures and videos, basically threatened to get me booted if I don’t sleep with him.”

Victor stares, mind rushing already to figure out all the angles he can twist this. The man has previously gotten violent with Yuuri already and even if he hadn’t this is a clear cut case of blackmail. It is unclear whether the man intends to leak Yuuri’s nudes or show them to the board, and Victor files away that angle for now.

If Yuuri wants to press charges, the odds are well in his favour. If a stop to this is what he wants, a simple negotiation with this person’s attorney was all it’d take. If he is clever enough to be on the school board, he won’t want to risk defamation over sex.

“Don’t worry, Yuuri. You’re going to…-”

There’s a knock on Victor’s door and he gives Yuuri a moment to school his expression. To his surprise, he finds his own face needs to be regulated to hide the sheer anger he hadn’t even registered. He only calls for the person to enter when he is sure they are both looking fairly normal.

The tray carrying their refreshments is laid out in front of them but Victor can’t wait for the man to be gone already. Yuuri clasps his hand tighter, similarly anxious. Whatever composure he had regained has already evaporated because the server takes one look at Yuuri’s openly distressed face, ramrod back and whitening knuckles and promptly excuses himself. 

“How do you want to proceed, file charges or…-”

Yuuri snorts and it’s a hard, mocking sound that has Victor shying away like he is an insecure fourteen year old, stumbling around, ignorant of anyone but himself. It’s a frighteningly new reaction and distantly, he wonders why this man is capable of making him feel everything so strongly.

After all, he has heard way worse and never been so enraged on behalf of a client before.

“I am a teacher, Victor. Why do you think I have money lying around to splurge on courts? No, I just want him to back off and get rid of the videos, and I know it’s cowardly or whatever but I really can’t. I just can’t.”

Victor is suddenly struck by how the tables have turned since that afternoon. Yuuri is the bumbling mess this time, at Victor’s mercy. No amusement comes along with the realisation, just the striking need to comfort the man, somehow. He doesn’t begrudge Yuuri for pitying him that day, anymore.

“It’s your problem, Yuuri and you get to decide how you’ll deal with it. You’re not a coward for wanting to get out of this mess in the way you feel most comfortable with. It’s okay.”

Not judging his clients is a rule Victor adheres to, anyway. 

The teacher doesn’t look convinced yet, however.

“An out-of-court, out-of-books settlement then?”

Yuuri nods, eyes downcast once more.

“Leave it to me. You really should try the sandwich now.”

…

The drive back home is peaceful, carrying the ever-present sense of satisfaction that comes with a productive day at work. What surprises Victor is that he has never before felt so great about himself even after workdays where he accomplished just double of what he had today.

He doesn’t waste a lot of time worrying about why he feels good, deeming it counter-productive and just basks in the sensation of walking on clouds as he parks his car and walks up to his doorstep.

When Angelina opens the door, he feel a breathy sigh punch out of him.

Her long blonde locks are gone, replaced by a choppy, wavy bob. Her face is still made up, but she must have been really devoted to this change of look, because she has swapped her classic winged eyeliner and red lip for a smokey eye and glossy nude lip colour in brown tones that sets off her green eyes in the most gorgeous way possible.

Victor can’t look away.

Her feet are shuffling back inside when she notices the awestruck expression on her husband’s face and does a double-take. Her eyes scour his face for a second and Victor registers it in some forgotten part of his brain that her surprise over his appreciation of her is pretty damn heartbreaking. Its like she doesn’t expect him to look at her anymore.

Shamefully, he admits it to himself that he doesn’t give her a lot of reasons to.

He clears his throat, and her expression perks up, hopefully. Encouraged, Victor lets his eyes trail over her form in her figure-hugging denim dress, lazily, appreciatively, the way he used to when they were teenagers in middle school, hopelessly smitten and too stupid to realise how obvious they were being. She is stunning, as always and he welcomes the vibrant thread of arousal curling in his sternum at the sight of her.

He realises he has missed this.

“You look beautiful, Angel.”

She bites her lip, the shy, surprised smile she wears making Victor pull her into his chest and lock their lips together, stealing a deep kiss that carries with it the thrill of something new and exciting and he is suddenly aware of how they haven’t had this in well over a year.

Now that she is in his arms, he doesn’t understand how he lasted without.

She sighs into his mouth, softly. He curls his fingers around her waist, pulling her closer. He doesn’t know where his laptop bag went, it was in his hand a second ago but now it’s gone and he can’t be bothered to look for it as they kiss each other breathless in the doorway and Victor is aware of his mind desperately trying to trick itself into believing everything is just fine between them, that they can have this, like any normal, happy couple.

“Ew! Gross.” They part and Victor feels Angelina turn around in his arms, giving in to a short chuckle as she leans her head against his shoulder. Yuri stands down the hallway, with Annushka in his arms, who doesn’t look as grossed out as her impassioned exclamation would lead one to believe. He knows Yuri asked her to say that.

He feels strangely warm.

Yuri, on the other hand, looks incredibly displeased if his scathing glare directed at Angelina is any proof.

She shuffles out of his hold, and mindlessly, Victor bends down to collect his laptop bag before entering and closing the door behind him. He follows her down the corridor to their kids, nobody says anything more except for Annushka’s excited chatter and its back to business for the Nikiforov-Plisetsky household. 

Suddenly unsure what to do with his limbs, Victor reaches to scoop Annushka out of Yuri’s arms. They are both starting to look incredibly loathe to part from each other even for the smallest amounts of time, and Victor registers it’s unhealthy, decides to ignore it for now, and keeps quiet.

“You’re so stupid.” Yuri mutters under his breath before he turns and leaves. “Sex doesn’t fix marriages.” Trails after him.

Neither of them look at each other, focussing their attention on Annushka and using her as a buffer, the default avoidance tactic that seems fair to no one.

…

Back in the bedroom that night, Victor tries to cease the impatient bouncing of his knee against the mattress, but fails. His entire body feels on edge, his pants have felt uncomfortable all evening and he is convinced if Angelina doesn’t come up right this instant, he just might go downstairs and fuck her against the kitchen counter.

He remembers that was one of her favourite spots.

Heated brain latching on to the idea, unmindful of the fact that they now had a grown teenage son and a five-year old daughter, he shoots to his feet, hand reaching the side table for condoms and lube. His fingers pause in the air however, at the sight of the five, six or so condoms packets lying there. He could’ve sworn he had placed an entire box in there last time.

Shaking his head, grabbing three and the tube of lube, he turns only to bump straight into a smaller, softer body behind him. He yelps and trips back, shoulders landing on to the bed. Angelina simply raises a brow and smirks at him.

“Boo.” She drawls, mockingly before extending a hand and pulling him to his feet. Victor rolls his eyes but allows for a smile.

Then her eyes trail down to the supplies in his hand and her smile drops. Before Victor can say a word, she is backing away.

“I am sorry, Victor. It’s been a long day, I am so tired…-”

He tunes her out, because he is old enough to understand spouses don’t always want sex at the same time and he knows he shouldn’t be feeling rejected and humiliated, but he does and he jerkily turns away, stuffing his bounty back into the depths of the drawer.

He hears her sigh behind her, and taking a deep breath turns around with a semi-believable smile.

“It’s okay, I get that. Do you need me to make you tea or something?”

She sighs again, this time in relief and shakes her head. This is the most civil conversation they have had in months and Victor thinks he should be counting his blessings instead of feeling this burning coil of shame in his chest.

“No, I am good. Just wanted to crash.”

He nods and awkwardly shifts away from the bed even as she turns to the bathroom to go and change. He watches her shut the door behind her, eyes trailing desperately on her shapely ass. He drops down on the bed with a groan.

As awkward and embarrassing as that was, his building erection hasn’t calmed down and Victor knows it isn’t going to. He hasn’t touched her in over a year, hasn’t touched himself in about two months and _this is crazy, of course his body is behaving like a hormonal teenager’s now._

Mind made up, and pride subconsciously rearing at the opportunity to show Angelina she is replaceable by his bloody hand, he gropes for the lube again and at the last second, moves to his dresser, fumbling around in his sock drawer for his stash. When he finds what he was looking for, he pulls it out with a half-bitten crow of victory, grabs his pyjama shorts and waits for her to come out.

When she does, he winks at her. She catches sight of the dildo and lube in his hand, lets out a bark of laughter and gives a dramatic flourish, almost as if to say ‘the floor is yours now.’ Victor bows on his end, walks inside and locks the door behind him.

…

Victor has never been under any misconceptions as to how great he looks, he knows he’s handsome, incredibly so.

His reflection in the mirror just reaffirms that, lively blue eyes running across high cheekbones, and smooth lips. He touches the bow of his lower lip with a finger, trails it across and watches his image mimic the action. The tip of his thumb barely dips into the warmth and he closes his eyes, pretending it’s someone else’s digits stroking his mouth so lovingly. He doesn’t have a face or a name for this person, he has never been particular.

He reopens his eyes to a soft flush across the tip of his nose, warm-toned skin starting to acquire a flattering sheen in the stuffy warmth of the bathroom that the expensive, golden lighting overhead and around the mirrorcatches like a particularly natural looking highlighter. Victor trails his fingers down his throat to the first two buttons on his black, silk shirt but hesitates on the third.

His other hand reaches down, caressing the sensitive skin between his thighs from over the thin fabric of his dress pants before moving across to his pocket, dipping in and closing around his slim smartphone. He opens the camera app and points it at his mirror.

He looks gorgeous, artistically dishevelled, suggestive but not lewd. Not yet.

Their bathroom is gorgeous, spacious and painted in soft shades of cream that looks great with the golden lights. There’s a painting on the wall directly opposite to the giant gilded mirror they installed over the sinks, some inane modern art that matches the theme and has little meaning to either of them. The urinal, shower, and bathtub are tucked away, out of view.

As it is, it makes for great background in mirror selfies.

Victor lets one hand rest teasingly on the skin of his chest and clicks a near-perfect picture, deciding to post it later. Right now, he has more uses for this phone.

Unbuttoning his shirt, Victor catches another picture as it hangs off one shoulder, down in the crook of his elbow. He strips his pant and underwear, angles his butt to perch on the countertop so that his shirt covers the swell of his hips but leaves his lower butt and long thigh exposed. He clicks a shot of that and then leans back, revealing a clavicle, his pecs and just a hint of the abs he works so hard for, then clicks another.

He first discovered what an intense turn on taking lewd pictures of himself was when he was 16 and Angelina had one night asked for nudes. He wasn’t in the mood, but he humoured her, hoping to make-do with pictures of his ass because he was too out of the mood for his dick to be worth photographing. He had shed his shirt, killed the lights, placed himself in front of the half open window so a sliver of moonlight fell across his chest and onto his nipple, taken a picture and sent it to her, followed by one of him sitting on his knees and holding up his camera so that the side of his jaw, his muscular shoulder and back peeked into the frame, with the main focus being on his ass. Two pictures in, and he had found himself getting hot and bothered out of nowhere.

Angelina had never stopped raving about how great he was at taking nudes, since. According to her, most men had no sense of aesthetic, and pictures of their dicks next to a longish object was they best they could do.

Ever since then, he had exploited the hell out of this particular kink. He had folders upon folders filled with nudes of himself, some of which he used to send to Angelina back when they had some semblance of a marriage between them.

Now, those pictures lay crowding his cell phone and he finds he really doesn’t mind. He rarely goes back to them. Just the act of pointing a camera at himself in such states of undress is erotic as it can be and it’s a harmless practice that he doesn’t see himself stopping.

Presently, Victor faces himself in the mirror, shirt off and fist curled around his hard dick as he flexes his muscles and takes another picture, marvelling at the perfection that is his body. Sliding the phone across the counter, he reaches for the lube, dripping some on to his dick.

As the cool substance slides against his heated flesh, he shivers. Using his hands to haul himself up on to the countertop, he sits with his back against the mirror as his hand works furiously down his length, slicking his palm with lube. Victor moans, dick twitching in response to finally being given some attention.

He knows he isn’t going to last long, he is too pent up for that.

Giving himself two long, slow strokes, he clamps his fingers around the base of his dick and shifts on to his lower back. Reaching for the small tube again, he works out a generous amount on to his finger tips, before he reaches lower and rubs some of it onto his entrance, his middle finger rubbing insistent circles around the tight ring of muscles. Carefully, he inserts a finger, feeling the welcome and not yet uncomfortable stretch of his ass.

A heavy hiss tears out of his mouth at the intrusion, and absent-mindedly, his left hand leaves his cock to stroke and pinch his sensitive nipple.

He works himself open with one finger for a couple of minutes, free hand trailing from his chest to his leaking cock alternately, and the back of his head pressed hard against the mirror as he pants. Victor removes his fingers from his hole and lubes them up again, before pushing three inside his butt this time.

It aches, faint discomfort knocking the breath out of his chest. His hand flies back to his dick to help divert some of the attention from his hole, as his fingers thrust gently, loosening him up with shy insistence.

His left hand dips down to cup his balls, presses against the fluttering bundle of nerves just behind them. Victor keens. Then he reaches out for the dildo, and pushes it past his own lips, sucking for want of something to do with his mouth while continuing to play with his hole. The object tastes like nothing, plastic, but he can’t find it in him to complain. 

Once he feels his hole is loose enough that he won’t be rendered immobile the next day, he sits up and pulls out the dildo before pouring a generous amount of lube down its slick surface. Hand running up and down the toy to spread the liquid before he places the head of the dildo next to his hole.

Lifting his feet on to the counter, Victor presses himself onto the silicone cock, feeling his walls fit snug around its steadily thickening surface. He cries out and immediately starts to stroke his cock to take off the edge while his other hand gives gentle, shallow thrusts of the toy inside him.

His back is drenched with sweat now, glimmering and sticky against the mirror’s surface. His neck thrown in, teeth and eyes gritted as the speed of the hand thrusting the cock up his ass increases till it matches the frantic, desperate pace of the hand on his own pre-cum slick member.

His thumb swipes over the hole on the head of his dick and he feels a shiver run down the back of his legs, calves clenching in anticipation. Once the dildo finds his prostrate it’s an embarrassingly early end to his ministrations, cumming with a muffled cry just a second later. Afterwards, Victor can do nothing but lie there, limbs thrumming, dildo still half shoved up his ass, cock lying limp against his cum-painted stomach.

He doesn’t leave the washroom till he feels it’s been as long as a not-so-embarrassingly-fast-climax would take.

Angelina is in a deep, deep sleep by the time he steps out in his pyjama shorts.

…

The next day is a Sunday, and Victor realises how much he hates that when they’re all gathered around the table for a late breakfast and the normal family facade is slipping right through their fingers again.

“Where were you last night, Yuri?” The question is sharp, aimed to startle more than enquire and Yuri looks up at Angelina with wide eyes and an open mouth, proving guilt without dropping a word.

“Don’t even try to lie. I woke up to get water and…-”

“And what?!” Yuri’s nostrils flare and Victor has _talked_ to Angelina about making him feel cornered and how it gets them no _fucking_ where. “You were just lurking around, peeping into my room like a complete psychopath?!”

“Mother’s instinct.”, she waves off the tangent Yuri was hoping to take them on. Victor thinks it’s rich, coming from her but he is distracted by the bigger issue for now. “Turned out I had good reason, didn’t I? Why were you not home at three in the night?”

“I am 16.” He seethes, and Victor doesn’t like his tone at all.

“Yes, you’re just 16. Not even an adult, a _child,_ living under our roof, who we will be responsible for if he ends up dead in a ditch somewhere.”

Victor can see where Yuri gets his combativeness from.

He has had years of practice with this, he is intimately familiar with how Angelina asks a perfectly valid question but always words her statements in such a way that it antagonises Yuri and makes him shut down. Yuri is an ill-mannered brat, he doesn’t even try to deny it but he is a teenager and they are adults and nobody in this house acts their age. They never get answers, they never resolve anything and he had been ignoring how adversely it might be affecting Yuri’s mental health as well as their relationships till now, dismissing these break-outs as meaningless arguments in the heat of the moment but in light of recent events he no longer can.

He places a hand over Angelina’s fist.

“We get worried about you, Yura. Roaming around outside the house without letting anyone know where you’re going is nothing less than a suicide mission. What if something had happened?”

Yuri clicks his tongue, insists he is not a child.

Victor feels himself subconsciously gritting his teeth. He gives Angelina a glance and cocks his head towards Annushka, who is listening to all that’s being said with rapt attention. She gets the hint, scoops her out of her chair, grabs her plate and storms out of the room.

“Where were you last night, Yuri?”

“I was out with friends.”

“Do I know them?”

“Do you?” Yuri cocks a brow.

Victor purses his lips, because this far in life he has never learned the name of a single friend of his son’s. He wasn’t even sure he had any.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were going out?”

As expected, Yuri offers no response to that statement, pushing the chocolate syrup he ate with his waffles around in his plate with his spoon. Victor recognises it as one of his old, nervous habits but he is getting a little sick of cutting Yuri slack all the time. It doesn’t sit well with him that Yuri considers one parent a hateful narcissist and the other a complete pushover, and doesn’t respect either. He knows he will have to reign the teenager in, while at the same time improving their relationships and he has no idea how to go about it.

So he decides to be honest.

“This is not going to be tolerated, Yura. You want to be treated like an adult? Behave like one. You will have to tell me every time you’re going out and introduce me to the people you’re going out with. It’s all I ask of you and I don’t think it’s unreasonable.”

Yuri has spent sixteen years of his life vehemently denying he pouts, but he does and it’s incredibly adorable.

“Are we clear?” Victor prompts. Yuri gives one jerky nod and Victor would have teased him about being a sore loser but he reminds himself in time that he is supposed to be the adult here. 

“We also need to talk about how you talk to your mother because the way you do now is just shitty.”

“You have never had a problem before.”

Victor feels himself colour because he has been bitter about Angelina all along and it’s true that he never made an effort to stop Yuri’s badmouthing. He _knows_ it’s just as shitty of him but-

He shakes his head and reminds himself that she is actively trying to be better, that they have to do this for the children. His son is possibly depressed and he swore to himself that night that his issues with his wife don’t have to and won’t burden the teenager anymore. 

“What? She put out one night and you’re lapping at her feet already?”

Victor seethes, remembers he opened this door and it’s his responsibility to close it.

“Don’t say stuff like that. I realised all the mistakes I have made, and hopefully so did she. We’re trying Yura and you’re going to need to work with us here.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that? You can’t keep getting shit wrong and calling it a mistake when the consequences of your actions come and bite you in the ass? Grow the hell up. Making up for your fuck ups is not as simple as saying, “Sorry I made a mistake, can we ignore it ever happened, please?””

Even before the words fly out of his mouth, he knows they are the wrong ones.

“What do you want us to do?! We have to start somewhere Yuri! And it’s fucking difficult getting anything done when a child who’s so selfish he has never felt committed to a single person in his life keeps on bitching at me to leave my wife! Why do you want us to ruin our lives?!”

Yuri’s eyes water, but the rage in his scowl overpowers the hurt in his jade eyes and a balled fist clashes with the table top next to his plate. Victor flinches, and he will forever be ashamed of that display of weakness.

“For fuck’s sake you’re a lawyer! A marriage not working out is not the end of the goddamned world and you of all people should know that! Leave her so you can be happy! Leave her so she can, for once in her life, be with someone who makes her feel loved!”

Victor feels his shoulders hunch in and he wants to put his face in his hands. He can’t deal with this, he _can’t deal with this_ and he doesn’t _have to._ He doesn’t have to sit here and take this from his own son.

_‘Stop making this about yourself.’_

Except it is. He needs to learn to read the lines and teach Yuri to do the same. This _is_ about him and Angelina, like that was about Yuri and it turns out Victor has been giving Yuri free reign over all the wrong issues.

He looks back into Yuri’s eyes and the teenager blinks, the tightness of his expression fading away. Before he has time to regain his anger, Victor orders:

“Take your hands off the table and don’t ever do that again.”

He watches the teen’s pale fingers retreat and gives himself a second before plowing on.

“I understand our conflicts have troubled you, but the way you talk to us is out of line. The way you behave is out of line. Here’s what you’re going to do Yura, you’re going to shut up about our marriage because it’s not your business. You’re going to give your mother the respect she deserves and you’re never going to sneak out again.”

Victor waits for a counter and when none comes, he mentally pats his own back and continues.

“You’re not going to be able to double over every discussion we have about your misbehaviour onto our marriage. It doesn’t work like that. Our issues are not your personal scapegoat. We will decide what we’re going to do with our relationship hereafter. You have made your stance clear, thank you but enough is enough.”

What follows is a mumbled ‘whatever’ and Victor knows that’s as much of a direct agreement as he will get. He sits back and crosses his arms across his chest.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself now.

He has already fucked up so much.

…

It’s a Sunday afternoon and Victor is in his office because he’s a coward and can never deal with anything properly.

He has nothing to do, no pending projects to complete. Yuuri’s notice was sent to Gold’s attorney that very day considering how Yuuri insisted he would feel better if he could watch the process of the drafting. It was a clear-cut case, Yuuri didn’t sue and wanted nothing. If Gold had a single braincell in his head he’d see it as his only easy way out.

The question of ‘what if he doesn’t?’ hung over their heads but neither of them worded it as Yuuri shook his hand and left.

He glances at the clock, and realises it must not have reached the attorney yet. When he picks up the phone to dial his client and inform him of the recent non-developments, he swears it’s because he is a sensitive enough lawyer to know when his client needs extra reassurance, and absolutely _not_ because his head is so empty he is craving contact with someone right not so he can distract himself from the train wreck that is his life.

He listens to the dial tone and startles when Yuuri picks up on the very last ring.

“Hey, Victor.” His voice is level, but high, tinged just slightly with worry. Victor supposes it is never pleasant to hear from one’s lawyer after all.

“Hey Yuuri. Just calling to tell you I dispatched the notice with the evening mail after you left and it will probably reach Gold’s attorney first thing Monday morning. Does he usually spend the day at the school, because I have known board members jobless enough to do that?”

“Uhhhh no, no he doesn’t, not really but he is free to barge in whenever. Wow, I should’ve waited till next Saturday. What if he gets angry and comes in and shows everyone the pictures after the notice?”

“He won’t because we clearly stated that we will sue him if he attempts anything like that. If his attorney is good for anything, he won’t let him.”

Yuuri sighs on the other end, and Victor wonders if by burying himself in the Japanese man’s problems in order to run away from his own, he isn’t using Yuuri in some weird, backwards manner.

“I have contacted the management of the bar to collect CCTV footage from that night, and ask for confirmation that there was an altercation between the two of you. I have call recordings and while the recordings won’t be permissible in court, they will help with the negotiation given how we’re not going to court at all. He has also confirmed it via email that he will send in the footage Monday morning, so there’s that. He seemed really fond of you, now that I think about it, the owner of the bar. He was eager to help.”

At that, Yuuri laughs. Victor smiles a little.

“Nishigori, yes. He and his wife are childhood friends. After we threw Adam out their daughters came to know about what happened and marched down from their house above with their glo-swords demanding to be allowed to have a few words with him.”

Victor’s smile turns into a chuckle and he imagines two little girls barging into a bar with their toy swords threatening to tear down sexual predators like the bosses they’re going to grow to be. It’s enough to punch another laugh out of him.

“I don’t think their parents liked that.”

“Oh no! The two were actually lamenting that they hadn’t come down earlier. Nishigori said he’d have loved to put that sword up Adam’s nostrils but then the Axel, one of the triplets, called him a useless cum-dispenser and Yuuko, the mom, lost her temper.”

Victor’s is equally baffled by the idea of someone surviving raising actual triplets and amused by the entire happening so that the snort he lets out is incredibly undignified. He covers his mouth a second later, but predictably, it’s pointless.

“My children would love these kids, especially Annushka. I don’t know if it’s because she sees her older brother in them, but the kid always gravitates to the loud, brave ones even in her classes.”

“Oh, I can see Yurio doing something like that.” A breathy sigh punctuates Yuuri’s words and Victor imagines him falling back on a soft bed because he probably hasn’t ruined his life so thoroughly that he can’t bear to stay in his own house.

He doesn’t have long to focus on that though, as Yuuri says,

“Victor actually, please don’t tell Yurio about this. Not only do I not want this getting out but I am also genuinely terrified he’d try to slit Adam’s throat the next time he sees him.”

Victor smiles at the image. It would be no more than what the bastard deserves. 

“Are you calling my son a tattle tale, Mr. Katsuki?”

It’s after the statement is past his lips that he realises it might not sit right with Yuuri’s clearly anxious nature. Before he can make amends however, Yuuri snorts down the line and in a teasing voice replies,

“I am calling your son a teenager, Mr. Nikiforov and a student of mine at that.”

Victor hums. “You present a good case. I concede.”

Yuuri snorts again. It’s cute.

Victor desperately searches for something else to say, not wanting the call to end yet. He doesn’t have to bother, he finds, when Yuuri asks,

“So, what are you up to?”

When Yuuri does hang up eventually, fourteen minutes later, it’s still too soon for Victor. The silence rushing in as Yuuri’s soft voice disappears is far less desirable.

Surprisingly enough though, it isn’t as heavy as before. 


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What actually happened bts in Ch. 3 featuring horrible dancer! Otabek and poodle advocate cat lover! Yurio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have school on Saturdays in India, and it's fucking sick so Yuri has to suffer the same. Sorry, I don't make the rules.
> 
> Actually, I do. Deal with it. 
> 
> God bless past me for not deciding to name individual chapters. 
> 
> This one is short, and I am sorry if it reads sort of choppy. Let this also be taken as my official plea for a fucking beta reader, oh lord please.

Yuri is staring at Angelina and watching her steadily get more comfortable. For the first time, it isn’t really funny. He just can’t help his astonishment.

Annushka is already starting to side-eye her vanilla-butterscotch cone and because he is so used to this scene, Yuri quickly starts licking his own cola popsicle, knowing any moment now Annushka would ask their mum for her ice cream and Yuri would be allowed to have his sister’s. It’s ridiculous, but it’s ice cream.

Yuri would kill a kid for ice cream.

Makkachin sits by his feet, licking his own doggy ice cream in mango flavour. Absently, Yuri strokes the poodles fur and makes a mental note to ask Victor for a cat. As much as he loves Makka, cats are clearly superior creatures and any household is empty without one.

Yuri has had… quite a day.

First the thing with JJ happened, and then to Yuri’s utter chagrin he figured out Sala and the girls were decent enough company, he just had to work hard to ignore Jim Jam Lamejack when the guy won’t budge from his girlfriend’s side. He shared Mr. Katsuki’s class with him though, and when they entered together Mr. Katsuki’s Bambi eyes lit up and he beamed so wide, Yuri cussed under his breath and resigned himself to never getting rid of JJ.

He couldn’t disappoint Mr. Katsuki like that.

After school ended JJ, Otabek and their bouncy friend had cornered Yuri in the locker room and told him the ‘gang’, which Yuri had rolled his eyes at, was planning to go to the arcade that night and he was welcome to come along.

They had both been smiling with all their teeth, and their gaze was genuine and Yuri could detect no hidden barbs in their tone. It was almost like they actually, really wanted Yuri’s surly ass to go along with them on a fun night-out.

For a minute he had let himself imagine what that would be like, JJ would probably insist on picking them all up in his brand new Land Rover Defender that Yuri secretly thought was really fucking cool. Would they stop in an aesthetic looking little cafe with neon lights and cramped booths for overpriced milkshakes like they did in chic flicks he’d never admit he watched? Would they fight about who gets to pick the playlist they’d play in the car? Would someone sneak in vodka to get everyone slightly tipsy before they entered the arcade?

Yuri had never been to the arcade.

Before he knew his heart was thundering and he must have been staring blankly at JJ for quiet sometime because the Canadian’s brow was furrowed and he had placed a hand on Yuri’s shoulder.

He couldn’t deal with the overload of emotions and told the three he had to babysit for his sister. They took the excuse in stride and promised to make him make up for it some other time, before waving goodbye and trotting off. Otabek stayed behind for a couple more seconds, just staring at Yuri before he nodded to him and left.

Yuri mindlessly chanted _‘shit, shit, shit’_ while hurrying out of the building in the direction of the bus stop, eager to hop on and be carried off to Annushka’s play school so he could pick her up and they could get on the next bus home. Half of him wanted to flush what had just happened right out of his psyche and the other half wanted to revisit the blissful few minutes he had spent imagining what it’d be like to have actual friends. It was a good thing he was so used to always feeling torn in half, he thought he might actually black out under the weight of everything he was feeling just then.

Yuri stopped and cringed, maybe being dramatic just ran in their family.

He resumed walking with a relatively calmer expression, only to stop two steps further.

Angelina’s silver Tesla was parked right in front of the school gates, as she stood with her butt against the door, Annushka dozing in her arms, still in her school’s pink pinafore with her curly silver hair in small pigtails that they’d taken to call two-twos. The ladies plus their car was commanding more attention from the students straggling around than any of the teachers inside the whole entire building had ever managed to. Some kids were cooing at the adorable toddler, some at the shiny car, and yet more at the gorgeous image that was Angelina Plisetsky. The irritation in Yuri’s gut in that moment had easily outweighed his surprise.

… and hence it was resurfacing now, nearly fifteen minutes later inside this little ice cream parlour that held a world’s worth of memories for the family and Yuri couldn’t stop staring at his mother.

“How was your day?”, Angelina tries.

“Why are you here?”, Yuri fires.

“I missed you two.”, she shrugs, and it’s really unfair how she always picks the best, and yet the worst things to say. He supposes it’s on him that he can’t decide how he should feel, but decides it doesn’t matter.

“You can’t just re-insert yourself into your children’s lives per convenience. We aren’t a pastime.” As expected, Angelina is now offering Annushka’s rejected vanilla-butterscotch cone to him now, and he leans up from his chair and takes it from her hand.

“I know. I shouldn’t have taken out my frustration on you two like this. It was so immature and I don’t know what I was thinking. I should’ve talked to Victor about our issues like the adults we are supposed to be but your father has this unique ability to bring out the worst in me, and I in him. I am going to try my best to make sure that doesn’t happen. You are not obligated to forgive me of course, but I am going to try.”

The entire speech sounds sincere and Yuri angrily pulls out his phone so he doesn’t have to think about it. If he did, he’d cry. He bites back a laugh at how this works, at how Angelina is the negligent, barely-there parent but it’s around Angelina that Yuri feels like a child, like he could cry over anything, laugh just a tad louder than appropriate, and maybe snuggle with her if promised permanent amnesia for her and all possible witnesses. Victor always makes him feel responsible, like he is becoming an adult too soon, like he is required to look after his father along with himself and Annushka.

Sometimes he truly wonders what keeps him from hating both Victor and Angelina.

On his screen are notifications telling he has been added in group chats on Snapchat and Instagram. The name of both these chats is a simple ‘hoe-me’ with a blue heart and that is enough to tell Yuri who started these. He quickly opens up the Instagram one, and sure enough, it’s JJ and his ‘gang’. Yuri rolls his eyes before opening the group chat on Snapchat and recording a quick clip of him barfing and rolling his eyes, which he captions with ‘who tf added me’ and sends.

Across from him, Angelina smirks.

“Now that wasn’t a very polite clip to send someone, was it?” She lifts a perfectly plucked brow and Yuri wants to be allowed to run a razor down the middle of it.

“Don’t.”

…

The group chats are _very_ active.

Yuri can’t help being suckered into the montage of messages that he has never before received nearly similar numbers of, not even when he was together-whatever with Kenjirou.

… and well, most of them are so stupid, he is honour bound to respond, if only to give these freaks of nature a dose of rationality.

For instance, Emil thinks lions, those lazy fucks with their frankly disgusting hair problems, are better than the pure majesty and beauty that are tigers.

He is appalled but not really surprised to learn Jogger Jammies agrees. The guy wears sunglasses on top of his head so he’s scum anyway.

Yuri rolls his eyes and furiously types in a detailed counter of their ridiculous claim which is basically made up of profanities, but Yuri doesn’t care. He doesn’t have to talk tastefully to tasteless people.

He only looks away from his phone when Makkachin tugs to a stop on the leash in front of him. He thinks he might not have noticed as soon as the dog halted though, for what he presumes is cat shit is already matting the hair around the poodle’s mouth.

“Makka, no!”, he screams. “Your dad’s going to kill me.”

Not only does Victor hate putting Makka on a leash but letting her eat cat shit? Yuri groans.

“Makka, you absolutely shitty dog, come here.”

Makka is not a shitty dog, she is the best dog ever, and she proves it when she comes over to Yuri a second later with her tongue still waging while her tail remains tucked between her legs like she isn’t sure whether to be feeling happy or sad.

With a grouchy pat to her head, Yuri mutters, “That’s enough walking for you. We’re going home now. Who the fuck leaves their cat’s shit on the side walk anyway?!”

Before he leaves though, he takes a picture of the dog’s smeared muzzle and sends it to the group chat.

He puts away his phone and tightens his hold on Makka’s leash, starting on the walk back home. There are quite a few people out and about the neighbourhood right now, children playing with their friends, people walking their pets, couples sitting heading to the community park by the block. It’s a nice day, all in all, and Yuri has missed Makka quite a bit too.

He keeps his head down, eyes on the poodle as they walk. His mind races backwards through the day and he decides as strange as it has been, it wasn’t all bad. Hanging out with JJ’s friends was not even remotely the worst thing to have happened to him in that school and the ice cream parlour was definitely a good idea.

He wonders how to feel about the smile curling on his lips but it doesn’t feel too awful so he lets it be.

By the time he reaches home and leads Makka to the hose in the backyard to clean up her fur, he is fully grinning. Sometime while on the way back, the flurry of rapid responses to his snap of Makka, made him think one day he might even be comfortable enough to do the hang-out thing with these people. He’s not used to how nice the thought is.

He definitively knows its sort of pathetic how lonely he is, but for the first time ever, Yuri doesn’t want to think about that.

Makkachin, clean and happy after the impromptu bath and hurried conditioning, skips off without proper towelling. Yuri thinks of rushing behind her, but then decides he doesn’t really care. Victor can come home and brush out his rowdy mutt’s fur for all he cares. Closing the front door to ensure Makka can’t track in water from anywhere other than the back porch, he finally checks his Snapchat.

With a grin, he swipes through everyone cooing over how cute Makkachin is. It has prompted people to send in snaps of their own pets. Emil has an impressively huge husky, Sala’s bunnies are so adorable he coos and then immediately promises himself to never tell anyone that, but Mila’s gorgeous Bengal kitten takes the cake, and he snaps her privately to demand more pictures.

“Yura, is that you? Would you please put my phone on charge?”, Angelina calls out from somewhere inside the house and for a second Yuri freezes with the thought that she might be riffling inside his own room. Blinded with panic over his hidden stash of cigarettes, it takes him ten seconds to realise she’s probably on the back porch with Annushka and Makkachin, and with a sigh he moves to collect her phone from the kitchen counter to set it charging on the outlet in the living room.

He doesn’t mean to check her notifications because he isn’t a gross human, but the moment the phone is plugged in, the screen lights up and that _horrid, horrid_ name catches his eye. 

Before he realises what he’s doing he’s swiping up the lock screen, glad neither of his parents have the braincells to put a passcode on their phones, while feeling an ugly laugh bubble in his chest at _what business does a cheating, lying idiot have leaving her phone unlocked?!_

He is still laughing as he opens up her Facebook.

_The man has sent her a friend request._

The bitter, heavy anger in Yuri’s veins is all too familiar, comforting like none of the bubbly joviality of the day has been and he suddenly remembers how they say if something seems too good to be true it probably is.

He doesn’t let it sink in that if the man is trying to add Angelina to his Facebook it probably means she hadn’t lied when she said she’d cut all contact with him. He doesn’t let it sink in that the man’s ID is fairly new and completely blank except for his profile and cover photo, almost like a burner ID made specifically to talk to Angelina. He doesn’t let it sink in that their texting history is blank, that in all fairness he has no reason to think Angelina lied to him.

All he knows is that _man’s name_ is inside his house again, with his family, enclosed within the walls that are built for Victor and Angelina and Yuri and Annushka and Makkachin and no one else.

No one else.

He stomps over to the back porch and sure enough, Angelina is there with Annushka and Makkachin.

They aren’t alone though, for his sister and mother are both receiving haircuts by two ladies in what appear to be uniform shirts that he has never seen before.

“Yura hi!”, Annushka babbles at him, trying to explain exactly what she has been tricked into thinking her monthly trim actually is this time, while the lady behind her frowns a little and tries to hold her steady. For the first time ever, Yuri tunes her out and instead focusses his glare on his mother.

“Yuri, oh thank god, did you put my phone on charge?”

“No.”, he grits his teeth. He is angry, but he is not stupid enough to hash out his family drama in front of strangers. His clown parents are big enough jokes in the neighbourhood as it is, everybody just loves laughing at their family, at the poor neglected daughter, at the awful abomination of a son, at the slutty whore of a wife, at that pathetic beta male of a husband.

He feels his eyes water.

“You have notifications I thought you might wanna check.”

He hands her the phone and doesn’t stick back to watch her reaction.

…

A pack of cigarettes and some helpless, irritated crying later, Yuri is in control enough to get to work on his Physics file.

“Ouch!”, his first reaction after letting out the high-pitched whine is to make sure no one is around to hear it, so he doesn’t really know how he missed Annushka propped up primly on his bed and carelessly uttered a loud ‘fuck’ before popping the sliced finger tip in his mouth, discarding the paper cutter to the corner of his desk.

“Ouch fuck!” Annushka repeats with a giggle and Yuri’s eyes fly wide open. He tries to turn around, forgets physics and the fact that his neck isn’t a separate entity from the rest of his body, twists it, cringes and overbalances, ultimately tipping his chair over and landing with a mocking _thwack_ against the fortunately thick carpet he had fought Victor tooth-and-nail over and thankfully, lost.

His elbow sings in pain, jammed between his back and the carpet and he can’t help wincing as he rights himself. He misses Annushka’s little cry of horror and blind scuttle into the kitchen, in the process, only looking up when little hands hold out a bottle of water under his nose.

“Yura okay?”

He looks up to find her nose crinkled in worry, lower lip jutting in a scarily accurate imitation of Victor even in adulthood and ruffles her hair to assure her he’s fine, before grabbing the water bottle and draining it to help himself calm down. 

After he’s about eighty seven percent sure that his heart has stopped racing like a crazed mare, he looks up at Annushka to tell her to forget about him ever uttering ‘fuck’, along with the word itself, maybe even try to explain to her it’s a bad word and they’d get in a lot of trouble if Angelina found out she learned it from him if the child was feeling specially patient, only to realise that she has gotten bored and is exiting his room already.

“Annu, wait.”, he hisses at her. She takes one glance over her shoulder, catches sight of Yuri taking off to grab her and probably mistakes the entire thing for a giant game of tag, if Yuri can tell anything from her excited giggle and rapid footsteps pattering down the hall. He gives chase, because as much as he enjoys riling his parents up, using Annushka to do it is not something he is particularly fond of.

Those two use the child enough to get at each other as it is.

He catches her streaking straight out of the dining room and into the hallway beyond, and catches the little giggling bundle right before she ducks out of the open door into their yard beyond.

“Caught ya, twerp.” He can’t resist blowing raspberries on her shoulder as she laughs and grabs hold of a fistful of his hair. When he looks up from her, his grin drops at the sight in front of the two.

Victor and Angelina kissing like they are trying to eat each other up right there in the doorway.

Yuri’s blood boils, because how dare she. How fucking dare she.

Whatever sense of calm he had gained dissipates with the soft moan Victor gives out.

In his arms, Annushka trills, “Ew! Gross.”

He can’t help but agree.

When Angelina turns and visibly shrivels under his glare, he doesn’t let himself feel bad for a single second.

…

Victor has left for their bedroom after dinner and Yuri has just finished setting up Annushka’s favourite cartoon on the TV before he heads back to the kitchen where Angelina is waiting for him.

“Before you say anything,” she looks harried. He thinks it’s only fair she gets a taste of what it is like to be in Yuri’s shoes, so distressed all the fucking time. “You’re only going to believe what you want to, and I know that. The only indisputable proof I can give you that I haven’t been in touch with him all these years is calling him on speaker right now in front of you but then I suppose you can easily claim I told him to say that and…”

“Did you?”

“No!”, she cries. “No, Yuri, I didn’t! I haven’t talked to that man ever since that night, I swear upon you, I swear upon your sister. I blocked him from everywhere and I don’t know why he’s trying to contact me now.”

Yuri knows, though. Yuri saw it in their eyes that very day, and he hasn’t allowed himself to turn away from the truth for a single minute. He is afraid if he does he will start to hate his mother.

“Because he fucking loves you, of course.”, he shrugs and the crumpling of Angelina’s expression is too painful to bear. He looks away till she composes herself.

She doesn’t deny it.

“Whatever happened between you two, was wrong but it was out of love and you have to decide if you’re willing to give that up for Papa now.”

Angelina frowns.

“I made my decision two years ago.”

“You did what you thought you had to do but you could never make your peace with it. You have been miserable ever since, and you’ve made us miserable and if this is what you staying with Papa implies, I’d rather you leave.”

…

The day he caught Angelina with Warren Padelecki, he’d been furious. A month from then, he had fully realised that Warren loved Angelina like Victor never would.

Angelina announcing she was never going to see Warren again had felt like the least she could do at that time. A month later, was when he truly understood her pain.

He’d never tried to justify their affair with the knowledge of how fucked up his parents’ relationship was, but Yuri Plisetsky wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t exactly big on propriety either. He said what he thought was right and today, two yeas from that horrible, eye-opening day, he can unflinchingly look Angelina in her eyes and show her he won’t hate her if she left.

…

By the time Yuri’s door is shut behind his back, his chest is heaving with tears that won’t come. He doesn’t know what to make of the slap Angelina had barely stopped herself from delivering against his cheek, but he know he won’t ever forget the furious expression in her tearful eyes when she told him he didn’t mean what he was saying.

Yuri thinks that is bullshit. He is the only one who means what he says in this house.

He sort of understands though. She gave up on her love for her children, and now her child is telling her he won’t mind if she left. He knows it must hurt but they have never been the sorts to coo over each other’s wounds.

Fingers blindly fumbling in his backpack for another cigarette he hastily boots his laptop and opens up Netflix to distract himself. There’s this show called Society that he’s been meaning to check out for a while now.

Just his luck, his internet is shot.

He groans and hits his head against his laptop screen, panicking for a second as it goes dark only to realise he accidentally hit the power button. Falling back on the bed, he lights up his cancer stick and opens up his phone instead.

The first thing he does is click on the group chat on Instagram. He knows for a fact that Jeremiah Jackass of Lameland will definitely get all in his face with something along the lines of _‘for a guy who didn’t wanna be in the group chat you’re surprisingly good at keeping up with it’_ but he can just punch Jolly Juggler dumb so he doesn’t care.

To his glee, for once, everyone is loudly and vocally agreeing with him on what a big loser Jeberdiah Jezebel is for he seems to have ditched them all to take Isabella to the movies instead.

Yuri is selfishly glad he won’t have to see his new _friends’_ feeds all lit up with fun posts from the night.

It takes an hour and a half for the public outrage against JJ to die out, and Yuri thoroughly enjoys it throughout, his issues with his family willingly pushed to the furthest corner of his mind. It seems everyone is exhausted after the ranting session though, because nobody seems to read the solitary text that drops fifteen minutes after the group chat is officially exited by everyone.

It’s from that cool-looking guy Otabek.

_otabekaltin_: I can’t stay in the house tho_

_otabekaltin_: or Ehsana will make me film another YT vid_

_otabekaltin_: ?????_

Yuri doesn’t know who Ehsana is, or why Otabek doesn’t wanna help her film videos for YouTube. What he does know is,

  1. Otabek is tolerable company. 
  2. Otabek has a motorcycle. 
  3. Yuri is bored. 
  4. Yuri wants to disobey Angelina.



All things considered, it’s their own fault for telling Yuri he needs to make friends.

He goes to reply in the group chat only to feel a furiously red blush spread across his cheeks at the very thought. Hastily clicking out, he goes to Otabek’s DMs instead.

_tigerstripes: Parents got home early and I am off duty._

_tigerstripes: So I am down to hang unless?_

Otabek responds within fifteen seconds.

_otabekaltin: sure_

_otabekaltin: should I come pick you up?_

As Yuri types in his assent, he hopes and prays Otabek brings his motorcycle.

…

Yuri tells Otabek to not blare the horn once he reaches Yuri’s door after receiving confirmation that he is going to be bringing his motorcycle, but he waits outside, anyway.

The headlight of Otabek’s motorcycle is irritatingly bright, but contrasted against the dark and empty street it’s _extremely_ easy to pick up. Yuri straightens from his slouch against the wall and trots over to where Otabek has pulled up a few paces away.

Yuri hadn’t noticed how cool the wind was tonight, it still doesn’t feel exceptionally so to be honest, but he doesn’t have any other explanation for stuffing his hands inside his jacket pocket and wanting to burrow in when Otabek takes off his helmet and pins Yuri under his dark gaze.

“Hey.”, Otabek intones and Yuri nods and _wow,_ Yuri had somehow not noticed how broad Otabek’s shoulders actually are in the daylight.

“Where are we going?” He ignores the other helmet being offered to him and asks.

Otabek shrugs. “Wherever you wanna go after we make a stop at McD. I am craving grease, and not the sort that goes on my bike.”

Yuri laughs and then shuts up. That wasn’t even that funny, was it? Was he supposed to laugh?

“Sure. Uh, fries sound like a great idea right now.”

Otabek nods and the helmet hangs between them.

_God, he’s being awkward, isn’t he?_

“Well, get on?” Otabek gestures with his shoulder and Yuri quickly grabs the helmet before jumping on behind him.

As Otabek kicks the motorcycle into gear, Yuri feels an overwhelming need to wrap his arms around his shoulders but chalks it up to the fact that it probably comes with the rush of his first ride on the back of somebody’s shiny Harley.

…

McD at 12:30 in the night is much the same as McD any other given time of the day. It’s the universality of McDonalds’ and departmental stores, time ceases to exist under those clinically harsh tube lights, and dull monotonous chatter.

Yuri isn’t halfway done with his fries when Otabek asks, “So, I have one question.”

He lets the statement stew, prodding and poking it inside his head needlessly because he already knows what the answer is going to be. Strangely enough, he doesn’t feel angry. He doesn’t really care. He’d rather people had the guts to talk to him face to face than come up with dirty rumours behind his back.

“About my entire deal with Mr. Katsuki?”, he quirks a brow.

Otabek’s jaw clamps shut for a moment before his eyes widen in very subtle panic.

“No. I just wanted to know why you have a poodle when your IG bio says ‘cat-lover’?”

Yuri stares. “What sort of a question is that?”

“Don’t cat lovers hate dogs?”

Yuri has never heard something that ridiculous in his entire life.

“Of course not! I mean, some might but they’re just stupid. Cat lovers can like dogs and dog lovers can like. You have the range, Otabek.”

Yuri watches as the guy scratches his hair with a faintly embarrassed scoff. There’s a smile curling in the corner of his lips that he can’t stand to think too much about.

“No, for real you don’t want to know about me and Mr. Katsuki?”

Otabek sits back and takes a decisive sip of his coke before looking Yuri square in his eyes.

“It’s none of my business who you choose to be with.”

“Wait-what? You think I am _with_ Mr. Katsuki, like, as in, together?”

Otabek cocks a brow, and it’s annoying when people are good with this particular move because Yuri looks like a demented turtle when he tries.

“You’re not?”

Yuri rolls his eyes.

“I wish, but no. I mean the guy’s sexy but he is our teacher.”

Otabek nods.

“That’s what I thought, but then there was the drawing thing and Mr. Katsuki seems close to you. And, like, I don’t judge, you know.”

Yuri might appreciate that if the stars actually aligned in his favour for once and he got to date Mr. Katsuki for real.

He thinks they will be good together.

“But you do assume.”, he teases Otabek instead, because it’s easier than willing away an awkward boner will be if he thinks too much about Mr. Katsuki.

“In my defence it was a logical deduction based on circumstantial evidence that could reasonably be interpreted the way I did.”

Yuri can’t stop the laugh that punches out of his gut.

“Law school?”

For the first time today, Otabek grins, full and slightly proud. Yuri wants to take a picture.

“Yeah.”

“My dad’s a lawyer.”

“I know, Victor Nikiforov, I am a huge fan.”

Yuri feels his chest tighten. When he opens his mouth, he doesn’t know why the words that come out of his mouth are what they are.

“That’s new. Kids at school prefer to call him _pin-up daddy._ ”

The smile immediately disappears from Otabek’s mouth, and as good as he looks with a deep furrow between his heavy brows, Yuri doesn’t think he will forgive himself for the next twenty hours or so for stealing that grin away.

“I am sorry, Yuri. Kids at school, they can, be a bit.”

“No shit.”, he chuckles, and realises he really shouldn’t have brought that up because even though he has become so desensitised to it that he doesn’t really care anymore, Otabek is clearly bothered by the crude nickname for Yuri’s father.

That is the whole entire reason, he admits what he admits next, after all.

“You wanna take me to the arcade? I have never been.”

…

Yuri thinks only an absolute fool would willingly stay away from a place like this for nearly one and a half decade of his life.

He says it out loud and Otabek gives him a very significant look that makes him blush. He thanks the powers above that the place is done up in trendy pink neon lights which conveniently hide the flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. 

_Let’s Go Island_ has just declared that he and Otabek are soulmates and he does believe that for two people who met that very day they backed each other up very well when faced with actual _(virtual)_ death. He watches the tickets roll out of the machine and smiles, hoping they manage to get enough for him to grab that little pink teddy bear he saw on the display shelf for Annushka.

“What do you wanna play next?”, Otabek asks, scooting closer to make way for a girl with the most kickass purple afro Yuri has ever seen. Their shoulders brush together. 

It’s nearing two but the crowd inside the hall won’t let you believe so. It’s mostly teenagers, couple or groups of friends. At one point, while moving from the classic _Mario Kart_ to the _Claw Machine_ that they both sucked ass at, Yuri had actually reached out and grabbed on to Otabek’s jacket to make sure he didn’t lose him in the crowd.

Otabek had just latched on his hand and pulled him close, before tucking Yuri under his shoulder. Yuri had always thought anyone who used CK’s The One has to be a tasteless fool, but here was Otabek, proving him completely and utterly wrong.

That doesn’t mean Yuri isn’t going to buy Otabek some actually decent perfume for his birthday or some shit. 

Now, high on their decided victory over the _Let’s Go Island_ machine, and happily sipping on the orange soda pop Otabek bought him, Yuri can’t help the smirk that spreads on his face when he catches sight of the _Dance Dance Revolution_ -esque set up in the corner. He grabs Otabek’s hand and drags him all the way there.

“This!”, he comes to a stomping pause in front of the machine and points at it. Otabek just raises a brow.

“I can’t dance.”

“Never say never.”

“I didn’t say never.”

“You said I can never dance.”

“No, I said I can not dance.”

“So you admit you can not _never_ dance?”

Otabek eyes him with the resigned displeasure of a man who can see the question being posed is a trick one but has no other option left.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then today’s the day you do.”

Otabek crosses his arms across his chest and Yuri mockingly does the same, comically jutting his jaw out and mimicking Otabek by exaggeratedly mouthing ‘I can’t dance.’

“I don’t want my first squiggly penguin experiment to be conducted in front of an arcade filled with annoying teenagers.”

… Yuri tried the trick question thing beforehand this time so no one can blame him when he resorts to his usual go-to method of threatening someone’s life to get them to do what he wants.

“You get on this damn thing right the fuck now, Otabek.”

Otabek makes a show of eyeing Yuri’s smaller frame from top to toe. Yuri almost gasps with affront, mindlessly wondering why the pink tones of the overhead tubes are so fucking flattering on Otabek’s golden skin.

“Or?”

Yuri steps closer to Otabek, fingering the lapel of his jacket. He watches Otabek’s mouth freeze in confusion before he yanks, pulling the guy stumbling and tripping over air next to him on the make shift dance floor.

When Otabek rights himself and looks up at him, Yuri grins.

“Or I make you.”

What follows is an actual riot, because it turns out Otabek really wasn’t lying when he said he couldn’t dance. The guy misses his cues and then looks around like a lost puppy, almost pouting when he loses to Yuri in the very first round, before he sets his jaw and with a pointed look declares war on the Russian, only to fail just as badly as before, this round featuring a kneeplant to the ground and an awkward slap of his hand on the screen in front. Yuri laughs because he can’t not, and only come morning will he see that Otabek captures the very moment his nose scrunches up and his eyes squeeze into tiny slits as he is about to burst out laughing and puts it on his Snapchat.

He will definitively recognise the lighting is unflattering, the angle is awful and the expression on his face is comical, but he won’t manage to get over the fact that he is on somebody else’s Snap story, like…

Like a friend.

Victor would have just left after giving him the scolding of his life and Angelina would refuse to talk to him, but Yuri will keep smiling.

Somehow between midnight McDonalds and awkward dance movements that he will recall and laugh at for the rest of his life, Yuri has made a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come scream at me about YOI on [my Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/shamelessllamapeanutthing)
> 
> Also, please do comment and let me know what you thought. Toodles!


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor does what Victor does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it's been a second, ik. I had a lotta stuff happening in my life buttt I promise you the updates will be pretty regular from here on out. Enjoy the unedited, non-spell-checked meal, y'all.

Victor’s life has a bit of a sadistic streak.

They had been dancing around the bedroom, joking and flirting with each other as they got ready. Victor was excited, it had been so long since Angelina had hung out with any of his friends, and if Victor was honest with himself, he could admit her disinterest in his life was one of the first indicators he had noticed of their crumbling relationship. So, to see Angelina excitedly dressing up to go party with Victor and his friends for Chris’ birthday made a giddy smile spread across his face…

… that vanishes within seconds when she, buckling the straps of her heels together, nonchalantly asks, “And where are _you_ heading to, handsome?”

Victor watches Angelina with a confused frown for three-seconds before chalking this strange question up to attempted flirting. He grins, waiting for her to straighten before pulling her closer to himself.

“Wherever you command, my lady.”

He almost kisses her but stops only because he knows she hates to be kissed after applying lipstick, which he thinks is fair, honestly. He would have felt the same.

Angelina laughs, but she doesn’t look as flattered as he hoped she would. He remembers there was once a time a mere smile of his could send her blushing to the tips of her ears.

“No, seriously. Where are you going and when will you be back, because Yuri is lax as shit and he lets Annushka stay up till, like, 12 and one of us needs to…-”

She trails off at the sight of the frown on Victor’s forehead, but her eyes remain uncomprehending and Victor feels an all too familiar feeling of irritation wash over him.

“We were invited to the club for Chris’ birthday. You said we’d go. Together.”

The realisation and subsequent guilt swimming across her face does little to calm Victor down.

“Fuck, that was today. Baby, I am so sorry, it completely slipped my mind and when Samantha asked if I wanted to go out for drinks tonight, I said yes.”

Victor feels her hands sliding around his neck, and the need to scratch out every inch of skin she is touching is all-too-consuming, terrifying even. He steps out of her grasp and turns his face away because he knows his expression is going to be ugly, and then a fight will become inevitable.

He really can’t deal with it right now. It’s his best friend’s birthday and he wants to enjoy the evening.

“Fine. I suppose you can’t cancel.”

There is a beat of silence.

“Why are you talking to me in that tone?”

Victor considers stepping back, diffusing the tension and appeasing her for one full minute as he finishes rolling up his sleeves, gives himself a last spray of cologne and ducks a little for one final look at himself in the mirror. By the time he is stepping into his shoes, he has decided she has thrown petty tantrums over smaller shit one too many times for him to even think of feeling guilty.

“Victor, I asked you something. So I forgot, it’s not a big deal. Why are you acting like this?”

He turns to face her, the frown on her face and her grip on her hips only pissing him off more.

“Am I allowed to be mad, Angelina? Am I allowed to feel emotions?”

She scoffs, tucking her tongue inside her cheek.

“You’re always so dramatic.”

Victor laughs at that. He can’t help but.

“Oh, am I? Guess you won’t be surprised then when I tell you I can’t _fucking_ deal with you right now, or for the next twenty-four hours if I am being honest. So I am going to go and I am not coming back tonight, because I deserve one goddamned night off, away from your bullshit. You can call it a night early, come back home in time, and be a mother to our kids for once, okay?”

He doesn’t feel the need to slam the door shut behind himself. The bitter coil of victory lacing itself into his gut feels satisfying enough.

The first thing Victor does when he gets into his car is call Yakov. He really, really needs to keep his mood from souring and nothing is half as amusing to him as teasing and irritating the old man till he is screaming and threatening to choke Victor from continents over. 

His life though, truly has a sadistic streak for Yakov doesn’t pick up and he is not enough of a prick to call Chris and distract his friend from his own birthday party.

(Even if he had, Victor knows what Chris would say. _Leave her. She’s not good for you. There’s no point to this._ He doesn’t have the strength to fight him, doesn’t have any good reason to fight him. He doesn’t know how to say _‘I can’t leave her because the very thought of a life without her feels strange.’_ without sounding like the sentimental fool he is starting to suspect he has been reduced to.) 

Groaning, he plugs in his music and starts the engine, intent on driving as fast as he can so he doesn’t have too much time to think about the impending fight he has no doubt catapulted them into. He can’t make himself regret his words, however. For so long it has felt like he has been eating them up, swallowing his disappointments, his grievances and stuffing them deep inside his chest so that it is starting to feel like every time his heart beats it’s a reminder of how lifeless this marriage feels. He has tried to give her space, remain non-combative, try to adapt, and recently, he had actually, _genuinely_ , convinced himself that things might have been getting better between them.

… he supposes that is why tonight has hit him so hard. He had become too hopeful, not realising Angelina agreeing to being better parents for their children does not directly translate into her wanting to actually work on their relationship. After all, she has become all too comfortable, her insenstivity spreading across all the space Victor had to cram himself into small, and yet smaller boxes to free.

He can’t actually remember the last time she had shown any interest in him, in his life, in his friends, in who he was outside of being her children’s father. There was once a time his friends were also hers, because she seemed to genuinely enjoy hanging out with Victor. Chris and Angelina had actually, at one point, been closer than Chris and Victor.

Except, overtime, that disappeared.

Angelina found new friends she never bothered to introduce Victor to and became less and less interested in spending any time with Victor’s circle, which she had become an equally important part of. It had hurt him then, but he knew they were both adults and despite being married they didn’t have to share every aspect of their lives.

Now, all this time later, both Angelina and Chris disapprove of each other and Victor still hasn’t met any of Angelina’s friends.

Victor feels pathetic as he tries to shake the thoughts away, ashamed that he, a grown man, is threateningly close to tears because his wife refused to go to a party with him.

Except she hadn’t refused. She had forgotten, like the first night out together as a couple after countless months of not having a single date wasn’t a ‘big deal’ to her. Like Victor had been stupid to feel as excited as he had, happily telling Chris she was gonna be there and refusing to cave in the face of his scepticism.

Angelina made Victor feel stupid and pathetic, and now that he can see it so clearly, he feels angrier and guiltier all at once, stuck between hating himself for letting his insecurities sour his relationship with his wife, and hating his wife for making him feel so insecure in the first place.

_She’s not good for you._

Victor knows it, he has known it for a while now, though he rarely admits it even to himself. Their relationship is problematic and broken in more places than he can even see but ending it sounds more terrifying than fixing it sounds tedious. He won’t even know what to do with himself if she leaves, much less Annushka, who would surely want answers and explanations the very thought of which makes it hard for him to breathe.

So, he forcibly puts a stop to every treacherous voice in his head that echoes the words of Chris and Yuri, and swallows his pride, already knowing he would ask for her forgiveness when he sees her next.

…

The club is exactly like any other club Victor has been to. Not the best but it is apparently where Chris had met his present boyfriend for the first time, so it’s a bit special to the Swiss man. Victor can appreciate sentimentality, even if it does translate to lack of taste sometimes.

Phichit Chulanont, Chris’ boyfriend, is exactly how Chris described him, all warm eyes and friendly smiles, sporting cut-throat eye-liner and shimmering lip gloss with a cute, little butt that Chris can’t seem to lift his hand off of. Victor smiles and hugs the Thai man and feels delighted to see that Phichit looks just as smitten when he speaks of Chris as Chris does when he speaks of Phichit.

They look cute together.

The rest of their circle seems to agree as well. Georgi is getting that vaguely jealous look in his eye that everyone has taken to considering a compliment and Cao Bin is enthusiastically exchanging social media handles with Phichit. Masumi, Chris’ ex-boyfriend and current close friend, is visibly approving of Phichit given how many suggestive, brow-waggling looks he has passed to Chris, and Zara, Chris’ sister, talks to Phichit with the comfort and familiarity of someone who isn’t meeting the guy for the first time. Its heart-warming and Victor gives Chris a proud little smile.

Chris merely raises a brow, because he can detect Victor’s obvious discomfort at being the only person here without a date with the ease of a… well, best friend.

“Hey Victor, where’s Angelina? Chris said she was going to be here.” Hazel, Zara’s partner, asks right on cue and Victor gives them a tight smile.

“She forgot and made other plans.” He says without a second’s hesitation because whatever excuse he could have made would have been proven false with one look at his wife’s Instagram stories, where Victor already knows she will be sharing countless pictures of her girls’ night with Samantha. Plus, his friends all know how his marriage hasn’t been the best for quite a while now. He sees no point in lying to them, in trying to preserve a facade that doesn’t even exist. 

“She’s always been a little forgetful.” Zara chuckles and tries to smooth it over. Everybody tactfully moves on from the topic and Anya slides over her untouched glass of whiskey to Victor, who downs it with a thankful smile.

They are sitting on couches set up around a round table in the corner on a platform raised a good two feet above the dance floor. Despite what it looked like from outside, the club is actually very spacious and nobody appears cramped. Next to Victor, a seat is empty.

Victor catches sight of Nitara, Cao Bin’s wife, stroking her belly and he forces a smile onto his face.

“So, have we gotten anywhere with the names?”

Just like that, the damper is quickly forgotten by everyone as they begin talking about Nitara’s pregnancy, Cao Bin absolutely _glowing_ with pride beside her. Victor throws in some wild suggestions along with the rest of the group, laughs freely and makes sure nobody feels weird about his departure before declaring he is heading to the bar.

Chris just tells him to ask the bartender to put all of their orders on his tab.

Victor feels like his throat is full of bubbling emotions, a vague sense of hurt he hasn’t felt in a long time reigning supreme in the confused jumble. It keeps his eyes averted and his smile tight as he orders himself whiskey on the rocks, desperate for his heart to stop racing in his chest.

For the zillionth time, he thinks himself pathetic.

“Victor? Hey.”

Victor jolts up straight at the soft, familiar voice, and finds himself eye to eye with Yuuri Katsuki, sitting at the bar right next to him. The first thing Victor notices is that the man has foregone his glasses tonight, and decides he needs about an hour and a half to simply take in the vibrant cinnamon shade of Yuuri’s eyes.

“Hi, Yuuri.” His mouth mumbles out for him and he tacks on a crooked smile, almost as an afterthought. Further away from the dance floor as the bar is, they don’t have to shout to be heard by each other.

Yuuri lifts a brow, and Victor marvels at how much younger he looks without his glasses, a lot more playful somehow.

A second later, Victor realises that’s more because of the little smirk on his mouth and less because of the absence of his glasses.

“Quite the night?”

Victor bites back a curse and wonders exactly how awful he is looking.

“No, I just got here actually. Work was hectic today.”

Despite his disbelieving smile, Yuuri lets it go and turns back to his drink, index finger tracing the rim of the glass.

Four day before, on Tuesday, a day after they sent the notice to Gold, Victor had gone to meet the man and his attorney. As Victor had hoped, Gold backed off pretty easily. Victor hadn’t left the meeting till Gold deleted the media in front of him and Victor got him and his attorney to sign an agreement that clearly stated Gold was not to be found in possession of or distributing any of Yuuri’s pictures ever again, nor use them to coerce Yuuri into any course of action he would not be unwilling to take, without. Yuuri had thanked Victor profusely over the phone, paid off his fee, and Victor hadn’t heard from the man again.

“Umm, once again, Victor, thank you so much for dealing with Adam.” Yuuri smiles as he glances at Victor from under his lashes, his shoulders lifting in a slight, nervous hunch. Victor feels his own eyes widen a little at the easy 180 Yuuri does, going from self-assured teasing to nervous gratitude in less that fifteen-seconds.

“I told you before, it’s fine, Yuuri. I did what you were paying me to do.” Not that the rush of anger Victor had felt when he caught sight of Gold had anything remotely professional about it. “You received the copy of the contract I sent you, right? He tries to give you any trouble again and you just remind him of the little paper he signed that day, okay?”

Yuuri nods, smile growing softer in a way that makes Victor’s fingers twitch. Victor watches Yuuri bite his lip before he nods quickly to himself and turns a heated gaze to Victor.

“Victor! Let me buy you a drink to show my gratitude!” His voice comes out higher than it needs to, so much so that he seems to surprise himself, glancing around self-consciously immediately after.

“Okay,” Victor chuckles and agrees because he doesn’t have the heart to turn Yuuri down when the younger man looks so impassioned. “How about you order some spring rolls for us instead seeing as how we both already have drinks.”

“So, you frequently go bar-hopping by yourself or is your date around somewhere?” Victor needles because he is some sort of a masochist, intent on proving to himself that he is the only sad, lonely bastard in the entire club tonight.

… because what are the chances really, that someone as sweet, kind and good-looking as Yuuri is would be spending the weekend alone.

“No, I am not here by myself. It’s my best friend’s boyfriend’s birthday and…” Yuuri trails off, a small scoff falling past his lips. “It’s the first time I am meeting him and all of his friends and I just… I am not great in social situations, especially amongst strangers so you can say I am hiding here by myself. I told them I needed to go the washroom but I have been here for like over twenty minutes and I am pretty sure Phichit must have cracked about a hundred diarrhoea jokes by now.”

“Wait,” Victor laughs a little because what are the chances. “You’re Phichit Chulanont’s best friend?” He thrusts his hand forward upon Yuuri’s nod. “I Christophe Giacometti’s right hand man, pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh my God,” Yuuri shakes his head, softly, his grip firm on Victor’s hand.

“To be honest, I came here to hide for a few, myself. We can just cook up an elaborate lie about a very insistent admirer of yours finally gathering the guts to come hit on you or something. He wasn’t letting you go, I took it upon myself to rescue you and then we had celebratory drinks after I finally drove him away.”

Yuuri laughs, it’s a clear, guileless sound that makes Victor’s own smile broaden till all his teeth are peeking out in what ought to be the most obnoxious grin ever.

“Yeah, no, Phichit knows I would have actually run away if anyone tried hitting on me so that won’t work.”

“Okay, then, uhh, the bartender was hard of hearing.”

The bartender isn’t in fact hard of hearing and the glare he pins Victor with has the full grown lawyer turning red and sputtering out apologies. Next to him, Yuuri looks equal parts mortified and amused as he grips the bar counter to keep himself steady through his silent bouts of laughter.

“Okay, that’s not gonna work either.”

“Oh, you think?”

Their spring rolls arrive, then and Victor’s scheming is interrupted by the downright filthy moan that falls from his lips as the roll crumbles in his mouth, the spicy, rich flavour of the filling within making him close his eyes in pleasure.

He looks up at a blushing Yuuri trying hard to stifle his laughter, if the way he is biting his lower lip is anything to go by and he grins as he slides the plate closer to him.

“You need to try these, they are _life-changing._ ”

Yuuri’s hands are immediately waving in front of his face in denial, and Victor feels a little thrill run up his spine when he realises he had known exactly how Yuuri would react before Yuuri did or said anything.

It feels like an accomplishment, and if that isn’t the silliest thought to pass through his head tonight, Victor doesn’t know what is.

“I ordered these for you!” Yuuri insists.

“And I want to share! Go ahead, munch!” Victor pauses. “‘Munch’? Wow, that’s something I say to my daughter by the way.”

That makes Yuuri laugh long enough for Victor to spear a roll in half and plop it into his mouth.

The soft brush of Yuuri’s lip against his fingers lingers longer in the back of Victor’s mind than it should.

As it is, Victor is not an idiot. He can tell by now that he finds Yuuri Katsuki attractive, dangerously so. He asks himself, _so what?_ So what if his heart is beating so loud it feels like it’s jammed up his throat as he hand feeds a gorgeous man spring rolls? He’s doing nothing wrong. They’re sitting a safe distance away in a public place and if they refuse to take their eyes off of each other, that just means they are adults enjoying each other’s company. If anything, Yuuri is easily the safest person in the club for Victor to be doing this with, considering how he must be well aware that Victor is married.

… to a woman who can’t be bothered to look twice at Victor any time of the day, much less sit and laugh at his jokes, blushing under his gaze.

She hasn’tdone that in forever, and in the spirit of honesty, Victor doesn’t shy away from admitting that his heart has never thundered in his chest like this with her.

He has had one crush in his entire life before this day, and that wasn’t Angelina either. It was a girl in his class when he was fourteen, who changed schools before he could confess. Then, Angelina came along, older, smarter than Victor. Everyone except Victor seemed to have a crush on her, but she only had eyes for him. He had asked himself back then, _so what?_ So what if he only slept with her because she was the hottest person in his school and back then it had felt something like a badge of honour to lose his virginity with her? He stood by her every single day after they found out about Yuri.

Somedays he still can’t believe what a goddamned asshole he was.

“Victor?” Yuuri questions, leaning closer to fall in Victor’s lowered line of sight. His hand has worked itself on top of Victor’s, where it lays on the bartop, and it isn’t even the first time they are touching like this but all those times before had been because one of them was upset and Yuuri doesn’t _need_ to be holding Victor’s hand like this right now and maybe he shouldn’t be but he is…

So what? Victor doesn’t shrug him away.

“I told you it was quite a day at work, didn’t I?” He laughs. Yuuri seems to believe his lie this time.

“Tell me about it,” he leans back, “Or wait, don’t. I don’t wanna be thinking about work right now, yours or mine.”

He doesn’t lift his hand from Victor’s even though he has to use his left hand to hold his glass.

“Yours more than mine, because you work with children and I-…”

“And you work with criminals?” Yuuri cuts him off.

“I don’t _technically_ work with criminals.”

Yuuri lifts an unimpressed brow, gaze flat.

“Yeah, okay, fine. No thinking about work.”

“Exactly what I said in the first place!” Yuuri huffs in mock exasperation. “If only you lawyer types didn’t have to debate everything.”

Victor scoffs.

“Oh, you think this is bad? Don’t ever interact with a law student in his first year.”

“Oh?”

“I am telling you, first year batch in any law school operates in a parallel universe to ours. They’ve barely set foot inside the college, and they all think they’re lawyers, ready to have laughable debates, if you can call them that, over the smallest of things and they’re so fucking pretentious. Talking to them is actually impossible. They speak like how lawyers word their arguments in court, complete with the ‘my esteemed friends’ and ‘regards’ at times.”

Yuuri shakes his head, lips trembling with suppressed laughter.

“I don’t know what to tell you. Are you sure they weren’t looking for a debate club and accidentally stumbled into a law uni?”

Victor chuckles, and reaches for a spring roll except his fingers skim thin air for a good fifteen-seconds before he realises he has finished all of them.

“Did you want more? I can order more.”

“No! As a matter of fact, we really should get back, now.”

Yuuri’s face immediately falls, and Victor lets himself believe it’s because he doesn’t want to let go of these moments alone with him.

“I am going to feel so awkward. It doesn’t help that everyone there has a date or a partner except me. Even Chris’ ex brought his boyfriend to Chris’ birthday!”

“In his defence-…”

“There we go.” Yuuri rolls his eyes. Victor grins.

“Masumi and Aziz are both close friends of Chris’, I don’t know how and I don’t want to think about it. But,” he turns his hand around under Yuuri’s so Yuuri’s palms lays atop his. “I don’t have a date for tonight, so you can just be mine.”

It’s a joke, he tells himself. Yuuri knows, he reminds himself.

_He is not flirting._

He just doesn’t want his best friend’s boyfriend’s best friend to feel awkward and hide in a corner the entire night! He’s doing Chris a favour, if anything!

Yuuri’s cheeks burst in a red so cute it nearly has Victor’s jaw dropping to the ground but he smiles and nods his head, closing his hand around Victor’s.

“Hey,” Victor signals to the still pissed looking bartender. “Lay out four shots each for that table over there, except for the brown-haired lady. She’ll have a mojito, but hold the vodka.”

…

Chris’ gaze is far too sharp for Victor to _not_ reach for his phone.

_‘it’s your birthday stop looking like a pi on a mission.’_

He sends. Chris continues looking largely unimpressed once he reads the text.

The person sitting next to Victor, is far from unimpressed by him, however.

“ _How_ do you make time for gym everyday?” And Yuuri has to be a little beyond tipsy because this is the second time he’s asking Victor that. “With the kids, and I can’t imagine a law firm being very flexible on hours. I can barely make time for a run each night.”

Victor hands Yuuri a slice of the pizza they ordered and removes the champagne flute from his grasp. Yuuri has been drinking a lot since Chris popped the bottle.

“That’s because you insist on staying up till 4 fucking a.m. and then you crash the moment you’re back from school.” Phichit giggles. He doesn’t seem to have any problems with the lessening distance between Yuuri and Victor’s knees. Victor has decided he loves Phichit.

“Hey, don’t use that tone with me! This is sleep discrimination.” Yuuri pouts, actually pouts, and the sigh Victor lets out sounds smitten enough for him to shake his head and shift a couple of inches away from Yuuri.

“The _what_ discrimination, now?” Aziz laughs.

Victor’s phone pings and he unlocks it to check Chris’ reply.

_‘It’s nice that you’re trying to move on but scouting out rebounds before actually dumping the lady is a tad crass.’_

Victor wants to flip Chris off, but he reminds himself he is thirty.

He settles with roll of his eyes, not deigning to respond to that message.

Chris isn’t done, however.

_‘Stop fucking toying with him Victor.’_

Victor would have told Chris how Yuuri is actually Yuri’s teacher and _knows for a fact_ that Victor isn’t available, if Chris wasn’t being a giant ass.

So he locks his phone without replying and stands up.

“You know Nitara and the girls had the right idea. Anybody up for dancing?” And as if to mock Chris, he extends a hand to the Japanese man, who grabs a hold of it without a moment’s hesitation.

“Sure!” Phichit chimes up from next to Chris, dragging the Swiss man to his feet as well.

“Wait, I am coming along too!” Georgi says, downing his blue lagoon with all the exaggerated huffing of a Russian in the presence of vodka, and as a group they move to the dance floor.

Point made, once there, Victor lets go of Yuuri’s hand, letting Phichit drag him into the thick of the gyrating bodies while he turns to face Chris. Georgi stops beside them.

“What the fuck are you doing, Victor?” Chris asks. This close to the dance floor they have to scream to be heard over the music, and for a second, Victor considers just miming being unable to hear anything, and continuing behind his beautiful ‘date’ for the night but he stopped for a reason and he’ll be damned if he lets the flash of irritation in Chris’ eyes terrify him when he had remained unflinching in the face of all of the Swiss man’s stone cold anger across the courtroom multiple times.

“You’ve been awfully close to Katsuki all evening, Victor. It’s looking a little weird.” Georgi throws in his two cents and Victor doesn’t know what to say to either of his friends, how to tell them he needs this.

He needs this to feel like he still holds some power of in his marriage, in his life.

He needs Yuuri, just for tonight.

Despite the drinks in his system, Victor is relatively clear-headed and he knows what he is doing, knows he’s strayed far out of the moral white. Finding Yuuri attractive isn’t new, but the way they’re talking tonight is, blushing cheeks and shy giggles are. He knows what it looks like, he knows what it is. He knows come morning he will curse himself for letting this want, this consuming desire crawl so stealthily up his spine, more potent than any of the champagne Yuuri downed tonight.

He also knows he is not going to let tonight build into anything. He just wants to feel needed for a little while, like he’s actually a fairly sexy man on the cusp of thirty, more successful than he ever dreamed he would be and not just a failed father and an unwanted husband, taking frustrations and humiliation to his bed every night and waking up in anticipation of more.

Why, he gulps, just why did he let himself believe things would ever get better between the two of them?

“I am not going to cheat on her.” He intones to his oldest of friends, unable to find a way to fit all that into words. He has a feeling come morning he would thank himself that he didn’t.

“Oh, it’s not you we are worried about.” Chris scoffs.

“Yuuri knows I am married.” 

He watches their faces closely, trying to see how they’d take this new piece of information.

“I- are you sure?” Georgi frowns.

“Yes, I am not an idiot. Look, tonight? It’s nothing, okay? And he knows that. Now, can we please go? It’s your fucking birthday for God’s sake, Chris! Enjoy the night, come on.”

Once actually on the dance floor, Georgi immediately goes to Anya and Chris places himself flush behind Phichit, who leans his head back and whispers something that has Yuuri, who’s standing right next to the couple, blush his way through the entire shade card of red.

“Hey,” Victor places his fingers above Yuuri’s elbow to draw him closer. Yuuri looks up at him and immediately forgets his embarrassment.

“Where did you go? You lead me here and then disappeared!”

“I didn’t disappear. I just needed to take care of something along the way.”

…

Dancing with Yuuri was a type of temptation that Victor, for the first time in his life, felt ill-equipped to deal with.

The sway of Yuuri’s hips was downright mouthwatering, and his ass looked perfect in what Victor had somehow failed to notice, were black leather pants. It was a struggle to keep himself against Yuuri’s front, because all of Victor was begging to feel that pert ass against his crotch.

That, however, would be crossing boundaries Victor had no intention to cross.

The compensation he afforded himself came in the form of his arm resting tight around Yuuri’s waist, crowding their hips together as they danced. At some point, Yuuri’s arms wove themselves around Victor’s neck as they leaned closer to each other, moving in step together through song after song.

All through, Yuuri’s eyes remained on Victor’s.

“You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.” Victor had said at some point.

“They are just a plain brown.” Yuuri had shrugged but his gaze had narrowed then, trailing slowly all over Victor’s face like Yuuri was trying to commit every inch of him to memory.

“I like them.” Victor had insisted anyway.

Lounging on a mostly empty couch opposite Masumi, Cao Bin and Aziz now, they try to wind down from their little exercise, the others still busy on the dance floor. Yuuri is sipping from a tall glass of water, and his face looks somewhat more alert.

“I need to go home.” He says at some point. He holds Victor’s gaze for a full second that feels more loaded than all their time together on the dance floor had. “I have papers to grade tomorrow.”

“You can’t leave already, come on!” Masumi drunkenly insists, looming on the edge of a blackout. Yuuri immediately tenses, and Victor remembers what he had said about being uncomfortable in social situations.

“Yeah, stay an hour or two more, Yuuri.” Cao Bin says, his tone a lot more friendly and open to refusal.

“Being a teacher sounds so stressful though. I can’t begrudge Yuuri his rest.”

Yuuri’s lips break into a small, grateful smile. His gaze holds a certain expectation, however, that drips out of the warm brown and tightens like a noose around his throat and Victor can do nothing but nod.

“So… I’ll just bid Chris goodbye, and head out.” The statement comes out as more of a question and Victor quickly averts his gaze.

“Drive safe.”

“I won’t be driving. I’ll get an Uber.”

“Oh.” The silence stretching for the next couple of seconds feels heavy enough for Victor to wonder if clawing at his throat would even be that much of an overreaction. Then Yuuri stands up, and everybody is bidding him goodbye.

He leaves. Victor doesn’t look away from his glass of whiskey.

“That was the right thing to do, Victor.” Cao Bin assures him. For some reason, that’s the last thing Victor wants to hear.

“I know you and Angelina haven’t been on the best of terms lately, but a marriage takes effort and you’d have regretted-…”

“Hey, you know I wanna propose to Aziz! Did I tell you I wanna propose to Aziz?”

“Yes, babe you told us and you’re gonna be so mad that you ruined your surprise tomorrow morning.”

Victor shoots to his feet, eyes nearly stinging with tears that don’t belong there. His chest feels tight, and his fingers tremble as he stuffs his mobile phone into his pocket.

“Tell Chris I am heading out early.”

He’s not going to sleep with Yuuri, he reminds himself as he rushes out of the club.

_He’s not._

…

“Hey,” Yuuri whips around, eyes wide. He gives out a heavy sigh of relief when he sees it’s just Victor.

“You startled me.”

“Uh, sorry. You need a ride?”

The atmosphere inside the car is surprisingly easy and when Yuuri places his hand on Victor’s thigh, he doesn’t ask him to remove it.

“So, how drained are the social batteries?”

Yuuri looks up at him from where his head rests against the car seat, eyes half-lidded and mouth open just slightly. Victor is glad he is driving, otherwise he couldn’t have brought himself to look away from the Japanese man.

“So considerate.” Yuuri scoffs. “That question in itself screams extrovert, you know?”

Victor laughs.

“To answer your question, I had a great night and I am nowhere near ready for it to end.”

Away from the safety of the crowds, Victor can’t bring himself to quash the wave of guilt that rises from the pit of his stomach.

“Sucks to be the students who wrote those papers, then.”

“Touché.”

Yuuri doesn’t move his hand.

Victor presses his mouth close, the Yuuri’s warmth seemingly scorching him through the fabric of his pants.

By the time he pulls up outside the address Yuuri gave him, Victor has called himself the worst husband in the world about seventy times, give or take.

When Yuuri doesn’t immediately hop out of his car, Victor finally turns to face him, knowing he will have to face what he’s done, now. Yuuri is biting his lip again, the bridge of his nose painted a rose pink as his hesitant eyes search for something in Victor’s face. Victor knows exactly what they’re looking for, and doesn’t want them to find it.

They do.

Yuuri’s mouth curves a little, and he blushes more, finally lifting his head from the car seat.

“A few hours won’t hurt those students too much. You could come in for a while.”

For a second Victor flounders for a response.

What could he even say? ‘ _I’d love to but I am married?’_ That was already obvious. 

“I am married, Yuuri.”, he repeats anyway, figuring Yuuri has had too much to drink. It may have slipped his mind.

Yuuri’s face falls with an absoluteness that has Victor’s own mouth dropping open to say words he hasn’t even found yet. Something moves behind the rich brown of Yuuri’s eyes and for one heartbreakingly painful moment Victor considers what he will later realise he should have considered at the very beginning of the night.

“You’re what-”

What if Yuuri… hadn’t known?

“But… but…” the rising panic on Yuuri’s face makes Victor’s own breath catch in his chest. “Yurio said his mother wasn’t in the picture!”

“Wait… Yurio said what now?”

“And you’re not wearing a ring!”

Sheepishly, Victor lifts his right hand.

“In Russia, we wear wedding bands on the right hand.”

“Have I been flirting with a married guy?”

Yuuri’s wandering eyes find Victor’s distressed face with the fall of those words and the bitter curl of his mouth makes Victor feel like he’s worse than actual scum.

“Why have you been leading me on all night? Was this some, I don’t know, joke to you or something?”

“I thought…” he trails off however, and it hits him then, that his behaviour didn’t for a second depend on Yuuri’s knowledge of his marriage. It isn’t an excuse, it’s no justification at all.

“Thanks for the ride, Victor.” Yuuri sounds hurt when he slams the door behind himself without a single glance back at Victor. Strangely enough, the lilting pain in his voice feels like it’s enough to draw a heaving sob out of Victor’s chest.

He speeds off before Yuuri so much as closes the door of his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment and lemme know what you thought???
> 
> Come scream at me about YOI on [my Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/shamelessllamapeanutthing)


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri and Otabek grow closer, and he finds out things he doesn't want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every Saturday is how often you're going to get updates from here on ;)

The thing with kids who’ve grown up in abusive households or with parents who fought frequently is, they are way better at noticing when someone is displeased with them than the average kid, and so, Yuri can tell;

Mr. Katsuki is mad at him.

He supposes he doesn’t have anything concrete to base that assumption on, Mr. Katsuki hasn’t said anything to him, or to anyone else but his gut was screaming at him before he so much as entered maths class that day, and now that the hour is about to end and Mr. Katsuki hasn’t passed a single smile his way, he is convinced something is wrong.

The thing is: he has no idea what he did this time.

He tries to hang back after class but Mr. Katsuki completely ignores him, packing his bag and walking out. Yuri knows if he calls out to him, there’s no way he won’t respond, but he’s feeling awkward enough as it is, so he leaves and heads towards the cafeteria, a humongous frown on his forehead and his mind miles away.

What could have happened?

“You ok?” Otabek, who’s sitting next to Yuri on the table the group always shares, asks the moment he catches sight of Yuri’s expression.

Yuri is instinctively ready with a sharp retort asking for Otabek to mind his own goddamned business, but the warmth in the other guy’s dark eyes makes him pull up short. He sits there with his mouth open, unable to figure out how to say, ‘I am worried my maths teacher is mad at me’ without sounding like the stupidest, nerdiest loser around.

He watches as Otabek’s own gaze begins skittering around in self-consciousness and before Yuri can assure the guy, he is licking his lips and muttering how Yuri doesn’t have to talk about this if he doesn’t want to, and Yuri nods, his selfishness winning over his need to reassure Otabek.

The disappointed curve of Otabek’s mouth has him wincing and for a devastating second he wonders if Otabek will pull back from him now, stop caring, stop asking. He tells himself to calm down, however, focussing his eyes on the lunch in front of him instead.

He is overreacting, and honestly, _who knows?_ Maybe he misread the entire situation with Mr. Katsuki as well. It’s no big deal, he repeats under his breath, and allows himself to join Isabella in teasing JJ, instead.

…

Yuri gets back home that day, exhausted and intent on having a chill day with Annushka and Makkachin. Not only is he too tired for any of his parents’ crap, he is also trying to be on his best behaviour so that Victor can’t deny him the cat he is about to demand. The sneaking out incident has cost him enough as it is.

Yuri grins at the very memory of that night though, and thus he knows, it was one hundred percent worth it.

Friends… are nice, and that is not an idea Yuri has previously been a stranger to, to be very honest but there’s something distinctly different about the feelings he is feeling right now, in comparison with any other, ever before.All this while he had thought what he shared with Kenjirou was the closest he had come to friendship, but now, he stands corrected. He supposes he had always had a thing for the Japanese boy. The nervous flutter in his gut when he caught sight of him had more to do with Yuri’s feelings than their bond as friends. There was always a flighty, whimsical quality to the sense of belonging Kenjirou evoked in Yuri, maybe because in the back of his head, Yuri knew he wanted more.

With his new ‘friends’ however, as deep as the sense of newness runs, and as anxious as Yuri finds himself feeling sometimes, the bonds being formed aren’t rife with longing. Yuri finds his efforts equaled and reciprocated, and there are no expectations weighing him down, self-imposed or otherwise.

Yuri is never going to say it out loud, but he is feeling damn near grateful for JJ’s existence these days.

A mere two hours later Yuri finds himself hiding inside his room, however, mood having darkened into a more usual gloomy quality. Of course _,_ he thinks bitterly, lips curled into a sharp, poisonous scowl, he is happy, and his parents can’t stand it.

Victor was irritable when he returned home that day, had been so since the weekend before. Yuri is sure something must have happened at Chris’ birthday party, and judging by the screaming match that has ensued downstairs, he can bet good money Victor is beyond pissed that Angelina refused to go with him that night.

It never used to be a big deal before, he thinks. Victor seemed to have stopped asking or caring about Angelina accompanying him to shit ages ago. Apparently, his interest in his wife has undergone in renewal and Yuri almost wants to laugh, because _hadn’t he known this was going to happen?_

A mere minute later, Yuri shuffles to his feet, marches out of his room and across the house to his sister’s, fingers already furious in their flight across the keyboard of his phone, the inbox of one Otabek Altin open on the screen.

_‘Central P in 15?’_

_‘Sure. Bring your dog. I wanna meet him.’-_ is the response he receives.

…

If Otabek is caught off guard by the presence of Annushka, he doesn’t let it show. His smile is soft and charming as he kneels down in front of the little girl, one hand in Makkachin’s fur and the other shaking hers.

Annushka takes to Otabek the moment he suggests buying hotdogs for the three of them from this van standing at the entrance of the park.

“Your friend is nice.” She excitedly whispers to Yuri, or at least tries to. Her volume is a little too loud for the statement to fall into the category of a whisper.

Otabek hears her, and throws Yuri a smug little grin as he waits in line for the hotdogs.

Yuri has never before seen an expression like that on Otabek’s face. It suits him in a way Yuri could have never imagined it would. His face feels strangely warm and when he hands his and Annushka’s share of the pay to Otabek, he very nearly thrusts the money into his hand.

Food paid for, they make their way into the park, Otabek holding Annushka’s hand while Yuri grapples with two hotdogs and Makkachin’s leash. The poodle, well-behaved as she is, seems excited to be out and about out of schedule. She is a clever dog, though and decides to stop yapping at everyone and trying to tug at her leash after a couple of stern commands from Yuri.

It’s a warm but cloudy afternoon, perfect for a day out in the park. The sun shines above them, but they remain safe from its glare and not a lot of people are around them, which suits Yuri perfectly. Soon enough, they find a shady, secluded spot to drop down in, Makkachin immediately going to Otabek, probably to beg for cuddles and kisses she couldn’t coax from Yuri and Annushka plops herself in the middle, making grabby hands at her hotdog before she’s even properly seated.

“Here,” Yuri adjusts the napkin around the hotdog, careful to keep a couple aside for when he’ll inevitably have to wipe the mess she is about to make, and sets to eat his own when he feels she can manage by herself.

“So.” Otabek begins.

Yuri sighs. He really doesn’t want to tell Otabek why he decided to bring them all here out of the blue. He doesn’t want to tell Otabek anything. Come to think of it, he doesn’t want to talk at all, which is honestly stupid given he _asked_ Otabek to ride out all the way here.

Why he did that, he still can’t tell. All he knew was, he needed the other boy’s quietly reassuring presence near him. He needed a moment out of that zoo he called home, away from those screaming idiots with the people… and the animal, he likes best.

“Can we not talk?” He asks, voice quiet. He sounds stupid to himself, he is almost prepared to be mocked, but he knows he won’t be.

He knows Otabek. Otabek is his friend, and that is a fact that still manages to bring forth a rush of endorphins in him.

“Alright.” Otabek says, mouth set in a gentle, barely-there curve that warms Yuri when he catches sight of it.

… and there his face goes, feeling all funny again.

They sit beside each other, comfortable in silence, exchanging a comment here or there, patting Makkachin or watching Annushka. At one point, she demands to play the new games on Otabek’s phone and before Yuri can reprimand her, Otabek has already produced the device from his pocket, a reassuring shake of his head silencing Yuri. He even lets Annushka install a new game on his phone when she huffily declares the downloaded ones interesting.

Yes, Yuri thinks, he really, _really_ needed this.

…

The next morning at school renews the niggling fear that Yuri had pushed to the back of his mind.

Mr. Katsuki is mad at him.

For the second day in a row, he does not acknowledge Yuri.

Surprisingly, the only one who notices the change is JJ.

He slings an arm around Yuri’s shoulders when they leave maths class, together, for once.

“Your Aphrodite is mad at you.” He whispers into Yuri’s ear, and of course, Yuri then feels obligated to call JJ a useless dick in every variation of the phrase he can possibly dream up.

He can’t ignore JJ’s words, though.

His heart pounds in his chest and he very nearly whirls around and stomps back over to where Mr. Katsuki, no, _Yuuri,_ is. He wants an answer, dammit! For so long, he had been relying on Yuuri’s gentle smiles to be the only constant in his whirlwind of a life, and he can’t bring himself to lose that. The very thought of it terrifies him. He doesn’t know why Mr. Katsuki is mad, but he knows he needs to fix it. He _needs_ to. He-

“Hey” JJ’s obnoxiously loud voice (or maybe it’s the even more obnoxious snapping of his fingers) breaks through Yuri’s spiral of nervous thoughts. Yuri glares at JJ, not letting his expression falter when he notices the worried fold at the Canadian’s brow.

“It’s probs nothing, Yuri. Don’t sweat it. I was just fucking around.”

“Of course, you were!” Yuri mutters, rolling his eyes. He feels thankful for JJ’s interruption however, not that he is going to admit it out loud, especially not to the dude himself, because without it, he probably would have marched back into Mr. Katsuki’s office and they really can’t have that.

What with the recent scandal, Yuri had been sternly advised to not be seen alone with Mr. Katsuki under any circumstances. Even if that hadn’t been the case, now that he thinks about it, Yuri has no idea what he would even say to the man. It’s not like Mr. Katsuki has expressed any sort of displeasure with Yuri’s conduct. He always behaves himself in maths class. How stupid would he look, barging in and demanding to know why Mr. Katsuki is mad at him, without having any proof that that is the case.

Maybe Mr. Katsuki is stressed about something, he reasons with himself. There could be a million causes for this change. Maybe he is distracted in general, and Yuri has just been so hyper focussed on himself that he made it into a ‘me’ issue when it essentially wasn’t. He doesn’t need to be panicking, he really doesn’t.

Except something must have shown on his face during lunch hour or so, because after school ends, Otabek texts him asking to meet up in Central Park again.

…

To think that he might possibly have an ‘our thing’ with someone makes Yuri feel giddy and then frustrated with himself for losing it thus. He has made friends and friends are supposed to have inside jokes and rituals and all of that and he should stop being so weird about it.

As it is, low-key afternoons in a park with Annushka and Makkachin for company, munching on hotdogs from that very same van as the first day they came here is going to turn out to be Yuri and Otabek’s thing.

The second time they go there is on Otabek’s request. Annushka has a friend over that day and so she is absent. Makkachin is off, playing with a tiny beagle pup a short distance away.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder, Yuri and Otabek watch the dog.

“Have you handed in your Socio paper for grading yet?” Otabek asks him out of nowhere.

Yuri shakes his head.

“Yeah, well, mine came back. The marking is very strict this time. You should look at it to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. What is your topic, anyway?”

“10 reasons why jocks will burn in hell.” Yuri intones, and takes it as a proof of how well-matched he and Otabek are, sense of humour wise, because Yuri is one hundred percent sure any one else would have frowned or tried to enquire if picking a topic like that was even allowed.

Otabek just snorts, the corner of his mouth lifting up into a small grin.

“Did you watch something new?” Otabek asks next.

“Like, I know I am super late, don’t kill me, but I just finished Brooklyn 99. I am still hungover, man. I don’t think I can move on to another show for like a week or two.”

This time, Otabek laughs.

“That will do that to you.” He says. “Most of Michael Schur’s stuff will. I just hope they include the Holt and Kevin vow renewal in the next season.”

“I personally think Pimento deserves more screen time, to be honest.”

“Fair.” Otabek’s chuckle trails off and he glances around the park for a second, his gaze searching, before his brows lift with an idea and he throws his next question at Yuri:

“Who do you think looked hotter, young Scully or young Hitchcock?”

It’s then that Yuri realises what is happening, and his heart damn near bursts.

“Are you trying to distract me?”, he questions, tone tinged with disbelief. It’s an experience, being paid attention to and taken care of like this. Yuri doesn’t know what to do with it.

Otabek turns to face him properly, and without the slightest trace of… well, _anything,_ on his face, he says,

“You never seem to want to talk about why you look down, so I decided trying to distract you would be the second best option.”

Cottony-soft breathlessness blooms in Yuri’s gut and he looks away, unable to stand the intensity of Otabek’s dark, dark eyes.

“Young Scully, obviously.”

By the time they say goodbye, Yuri realises from that moment onwards, he hadn’t spared anyone who wasn’t Otabek a single thought.

…

On their fourth afternoon together in the park, Yuri tells Otabek why he seems so worried in school all the time.

If nothing else, it’s fun to watch Otabek’s face go through a range of comical expressions, from bafflement to barely concealed suspicion. Yuri realises he might still believe Yuri had a thing going on with Mr. Katsuki, but he doesn’t bother to correct him. The idea of it is pleasing.

As confused as Otabek looks, he doesn’t, for a single second, make Yuri feel stupid for being so close to a teacher to be affected like this by a little decrease in attention. He listens attentively, and then lapses into silence but his frown is a clear indication of his racing thoughts.

Otabek almost never blurts things out. He is careful, contained, and very sensible for a teenager who rides a motorbike and dresses primarily in leather. The boy is breathing proof that almost everything the world likes to tell you about people and the lives they lead, is a big, fat lie handcrafted to encourage the smug superiority complexes of the people spewing those lies, because more often than not, they’re a little to insecure to allow themselves to live in a world where their confidence is not the direct result of somebody else’s degradation.

Otabek Altin doesn’t seem to care too much about what people say about him, but he’s always careful with what he says to people. His touch is soft as he cards his fingers through Annushka’s hair, who’s sprawled across his and Yuri’s lap, napping. His voice is kind whenever he speaks to the owner of the hotdog van when he goes to order some. His eyes are patient when he listens to people ramble on and on about one boring story or another. In a hundred ways, he is better than Yuri, but he genuinely doesn’t seem to believe the same for himself.

Yuri is starting to think Otabek might be the cutest, as well as the coolest, person he knows. Plus, he is very smart, too. Yuri decides he struck lucky in the friends department. He can’t imagine a person better than Otabek, so naturally, Otabek is the best friend Yuri could’ve asked for.

Presently, Otabek nods to himself, possibly having reached a conclusion and turns to Yuri:

“You should ask him if you’ve done something wrong.”

“And look like an idiot?”

Otabek looks genuinely confused.

“How would that make you look like an idiot? You care enough about him to make sure you’ve done nothing to hurt your bond with him. That’s not idiotic. That sounds very nice, actually.”

Yuri remains silent, grumbling under his breath. He has a feeling Otabek, who naturally seems to ooze coolness, won’t understand how dorky small things like those can make people feel.

“Plus” Otabek continues when Yuri doesn’t respond. “You said you two were close and he’s a super chill guy. I really don’t think he’d mind. I can stay back with you, if you want. That’d also solve the ‘don’t be alone with Katsuki’ problem for you.”

“No” Yuri insists, and doesn’t elaborate when asked.

…

Alone in his bed that night, watching a thin tendril of smoke drift away from the lit end of his cigarette, Yuri comes to a realisation.

Subconsciously, he’s been avoiding confrontation. 

Even as he feels something is wrong, he’s afraid of rocking the boat. In the back of his mind he knows he has already decided to weather this weird change out. He was never going to talk to Mr. Katsuki if the man didn’t approach him and state the problem first.

He’s being a Victor.

… and he really can’t have that.

…

“Are you mad at me?”

Otabek immediately jabs an elbow into Yuri’s side, because Yuri’s arms are crossed, mouth twisted in a scowl. His tone is rude, at best and Mr. Katsuki doesn’t too impressed with the way he’s talking.

Yuri bites back a curse and tries to loosen his posture. He is already preparing for a fight, and once again he thinks he is being a Victor. It’s a terrifying and sobering thought. He wonders how long it will take him to truly shirk off all of the ill-manners he picked up from his parents.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Katsuki asks. His eyes don’t look very warm, though and his face is drawn, tired. Yuri thinks maybe his initial suspicion of Mr. Katsuki just being stressed about something else was right after all.

“Are you mad at me?”

He repeats himself, because it was tough enough to explain to himself why he thinks the man is angry. There’s no way he can say it out loud and not cringe at himself.

Mr. Katsuki, thankfully, doesn’t seem all that interested in playing these games himself.

“You lied to me.”

Yuri’s mouth flies open, because okay, yes, he lies to teachers on a near daily basis but he can’t remember one instance where he was untruthful to his favourite one.

“Like hell I did!” There’s another sharp jab of Otabek’s elbow, and almost unconsciously, Yuri leans into the other boy. He watches Mr. Katsuki’s eyes narrow, but the man doesn’t remark on how close the two of them are standing.

“I mean, when? When did I lie to you?” 

“You told me your mother wasn’t in the picture.”

Yuri gapes, unable to make heads or tails out of this conversation. He does remember saying that of course, but it’s not exactly a lie. Even if it was, he can’t imagine how that’d be of any consequence to his _mathematics teacher._

Before he can say anything, Mr. Katsuki sighs, lifting his glasses from his face and bringing his thumb and index finger to massage the bridge of his nose. 

“I am not mad at you, Yuri. I just wasn’t expecting… I don’t even know. Why would you lie about something like that?”

Yuri wants to explain, he truly does but at that very moment, he feels unable to look over the whirlwind of thoughts raging inside his head.

So, what he ends up saying is,- “Why does that matter?”

_What even happened?_

Mr. Katsuki stares at him, and his face is too inscrutable for Yuri’s liking. Yuri knows he has said the wrong thing. Regardless of how or why Mr. Katsuki knows or cares, it’s never fun being lied to. Without context, he is pretty sure what he said sounds like a white-faced lie.

“I suppose it doesn’t.” Mr. Katsuki says, springing to his feet and sweeping his things off his desk and into his arms. “That’s that, then. Good day.” He nods at the two of them, and marches away, face still stuck in an impassive mask of nothingness.

Yuri stares behind him, confused and not very surprisingly,… hurt.

That was a man who was supposed to be in _his_ corner, dammit!

“What the fuck was that?” Otabek mutters next to him.

What the fuck, indeed.

…

Yuri must appear gloomier than he usually does that day because he hasn’t so much as sat down at the cafeteria table before Mila is scrambling to throw together plans for that evening. The group excitedly agrees to the first suggestion presented, and Yuri stares at them, torn between spurning their pity and indulging his disbelief that he has found people who seem to care.

All of them have adopted Otabek’s strategy it seems. They don’t push Yuri for answers, just immediately get down to trying to distract him. Yuri’s heart feels full with conflicting emotions and this time, he manages to not panic and run away when asked to join the ‘gang’ for lunch after school.

They head straight to a small pizzeria by the corner after school ends, and despite his grumbling, Yuri decides Mila’s arm thrown carelessly around his shoulders feels very nice.

Once they are there, Emil decides they want a full Hawaiian pizza all to themself and Yuri is obligated to make loud gagging noises, then. Soon enough he loses himself in the pointless chatter of the group. At one point, Isabella produces photos of an adorable cat that she has just adopted after her neighbour through the poor girl out after they realised she was sick and needed treatment they’s have to pay for. Yuri snatches the phone out of her hand in excitement, feeling his eyes widening.

“She’s beautiful!” He coos. The cat has a very grumpy face and huge, judgemental eyes. He loves her already.

“Right?” JJ exclaims. “I can’t believe how cruel you have to be to throw out your pet like that. I am so glad Bella’s mom saw the cat when she did.”

Yuri agrees with JJ, and that’s frightening so he very carefully shuts up till he has swallowed the thought down with no chance of regurgitation.

Across the table from him, Otabek sends him a mocking smirk. Yuri flips him off, purely on instinct. For the second time, his brain short-circuits at the sight of that particular expression on Otabek’s face.

He looks… _hot._ Yes, hot is the word for it.

The only people Yuri talks to from that point onwards are Mila, Isabells and Emil, the last because questionable tastes and painfully high excitement levels aside, they seem pretty chill and don’t seem to want to leave Yuri tongue-tied for no real reason.

…

Yuri rides behind Otabek’s motorcycle on the way home and his arms slide a little easier around the other boy’s waist this time around.

“Call me whenever you need me.” He says as Yuri alights. His hand wraps around Yuri’s, grip firm, skin warm. Yuri nods, and doesn’t retract his hand from Otabek’s grasp till it becomes impossible not to.

Inside his room with his door safely shut, he allows himself to grin as he realises that Otabek didn’t let go till he did.

…

It’s later in the night that the group chat is alive with a flurry of texts when Sara starts spamming them with crying emoticons.

m __babicheva: Who bit you?_

Mila asks and Yuri likes that message.

_saraccccc: ’Have you seen Chulanont’s new boyfriend? They look sooooooo hot together!!!!!!!’_

_‘The librarian?’_ Yuri confirms.

_‘Yep.’_

As it turns out nobody other than her had seen the guy, so naturally, she forwards Chulanont’s latest post to the group chat.

Yuri feels his eyes grow comically huge because, _that’s Chris._

… and they’re undoubtedly together, because if they aren’t than the way Chris is looking at the shorter dude is fucking inappropriate, not that the other man has ever cared much about propriety.

Everyone seems to agree with Sara as to how good the two look together. Yuri on the other hand, clicks over to Chulanont’s Instagram handle.

The first thing he notices are the many pictures of three cute hamsters thrown all over Chulanont’s profile. Now, Yuri on principle, never follows teachers on social media but those hamsters are too cute to miss out on, so he hits follow and then starts scouring Chulanont’s posts for ones featuring Chris.

There is no shortage.

It becomes clear soon enough that the two are, in fact, dating. There’s even a picture of Chulanont together with Chris, Victor and Chris’ sister. The date it was posted indicates the photo was taken on Chris’ birthday.

Curious, Yuri wanders over to Chris’ handle.

He wishes he hadn’t.

Chris doesn’t post all that much on Instagram, compared to his boyfriend, at least, so the very first post is an album of pictures from his birthday party. Scrolling through them, Yuri chances upon it.

The focus of the picture is clearly Chris and Chulanont, wrapped up as they are in each other on what looks to be a club’s dance floor. The flash, however, is bright enough to have caught a couple of men standing a little behind them.

Yuri doesn’t take a second to recognise the two, because it’s most definitely his father and his maths teacher, dancing too closely for it to be considered appropriate given Victor’s marital status of _uh, yes!_

Before he even knows what he’s doing, he has forwarded the picture to Otabek, who calls him within seconds.

Yuri declines it without a thought. He is going to talk to Otabek, of course he is but he needs to talk to someone else first, and the rage coursing through him allows him to waste no time. He flings his bedroom doors open, making them rattle against the frame. From somewhere deep inside the house, Angelina called out for him, inquiring if everything was okay.

He ignored her, stomping over to Victor’s bedroom, fists clenched and teeth chattering in his mouth. He suddenly remembers he shivers when he’s truly furious, and the waterworks will be starting any moment now because that’s what anger does to him and _nobody_ in the entire world pisses him off like his parents do.

That, at least, manages to pull a hateful chuckle out of him.

He slams the door of his parents’ bedroom open, not giving Victor the chance to sit up straight before he flings the phone at his chest, the picture now glaring up at Victor’s stunned face.

He opens his mouth as if he is about to say something but then he clocks into the look on Yuri’s face. Victor’s eyes widen and he picks up Yuri’s phone.

Yuri realises he should be more pleased than he is at the way Victor’s face becomes entirely drained of all colour, but all he feels is a painful tugging in his chest and he has to clench his fists to keep himself from punching something.

_Maybe he bought into his parents’ charade this time, after all. Maybe he had begun hoping…_

He watches Victor struggle to compose his expression, and look up only once he succeeds. Yuri realises that man really isn’t as big of a victim as he is definitely convinced he is.

“We were just dancing.”

Victor’s voice is smooth, his tone level. He doesn’t slur his words or hesitate for a second. His gaze don’t inch away from Yuri’s face for a single second. Now lying well is probably a trait anyone in Victor’s possession would have to cultivate but it’s sickening that he is using it on his own son.

Yuri stares at him, face still caught in a thunderous scowl. Victor doesn’t flinch and Yuri starts wondering why he even came to confront him, what he was even expecting. Victor looks remorseless and Yuri wonders if this is revenge for what Angelina did all those months ago.

Had Victor known all this time…?

“How long?” He questions, and remembers that was the first question he had asked Angelina when he caught her, as well.

“How long we danced?” Victor’s steady tone breaks, rises in pitch to sound as if he is mocking Yuri. He looks sorry just a second later and he forces himself to loosen his frame, stand up and take a step towards Yuri with his arms spread out, trying to pacify him.

“How long have you been fucking?”

Victor stops, and his expression descends into the category of outraged.

“I didn’t f-touch him! I haven’t cheated on your mom!”

“I don’t believe you.”

Victor scrambles for a second.

“Then, you can ask Chris! He was there the entire time!”

Yuri’s brain races;

“That was the only time you met Katsuki out of school then?”

The question makes Victor stop. He clamps his mouth shut. Yuri already knows what the response would be, but he waits for Victor to admit it, anyway.

“No, but we met in a professional capacity. He needed my help to… draft a contract.”

Yuri snorts.

“And without a Chris to chaperone you, too? Can only imagine what sort of things you got up to in private with him when you dance like that with about a hundred people around you.”

“You are misreading this entire situation.”

“Don’t gaslight me.”

Victor flounders, steadily losing his composure. It would have been fun to watch, if Yuri wasn’t presently feeling like his entire world had gone to shit.

“I am not gaslighting you. You weren’t there, you don’t know.”

“I think I know enough.”

Yuri sticks out his hand for his phone, which Victor reluctantly relinquishes. Second later, he’s already in his room throwing a couple of shirts and his toothbrush into a bag.

…

Angelina had some questions about who this Otabek guy is and why she hadn’t been informed of Yuri’s sleepover plans earlier, but ultimately she caved so Yuri booked a cab and rode it to the park.

It’s late in the night, and the park seems deserted to the eye. There’s no one around and it looks dark and lonely.

Yuri is one hundred percent sure he will start bawling like a baby if he goes in.

So, he doesn’t. He goes up to the hotdog van instead, and buys himself two.

He doesn’t know where he is going to go. He supposes he can go to Otabek’s, but it would look weird. They didn’t have anything planned and he can’t show up to the guy’s house so late in the night. Even if Otabek won’t mind, he has a family and they most definitely would.

Yuri couldn’t have possibly stayed home tonight, though.

So, now, he has nowhere to go, a visceral pain raging in his chest and two hotdogs. Fun.

He sits outside the park, eating his hotdogs and avoiding the van owner’s eyes just as he avoids the thoughts raging and swarming inside his skull. He knows he will have to move on from there soon enough though, otherwise the man would start asking questions he doesn’t have answers to.

His brain races to try to figure out a place to stay. He is a minor so he can’t get a hotel and he has no relatives in the city. He could go to Chris’ but Chris would tell Victor and then Victor would try to come fetch him. He can’t have that.

There’s only one person Yuri knows who lives all by himself and probably won’t mind Yuri crashing but that is not a person Yuri is overly fond of.

As the van owner’s eyes grow more suspicious and concerned, though, Yuri realises he has no other option. He quickly gulps down the remainder of his second hotdog and fishes out his phone as he gets to his feet.

The moment the call is picked up, he asks,

“JJ? Hey, think I could crash at yours tonight?”


	7. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor faces some tough realities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I know I promised a chapter every Saturday but I got my fingers caught in a door and was unable to type for the past month of so. Hope you enjoy this delayed offering.

Waking up is difficult for Victor the next day.

He lays in bed for longer than he should, misses gym and asks Angelina to take the kids to school. He doesn’t move, get coffee, check his phone, grab a newspaper, or anything. He just lays there, eyes wide open and staring at nothing.

He startles when he feels a hand being placed on his shoulder, but relaxes when, upon turning, meets his wife’s concerned green eyes.

“Hey,” she whispers and like a whiplash, Victor remembers that is the tone she used to speak to the kids when they were upset as toddlers. He wonders if he should feel insulted, but doesn’t truly mind that he doesn’t.

“Are you okay, baby?”

There’s that endearment again. He can’t think of the last time she called him that and _now_ he does feel insulted because why the hell is she calling him that after he was almost unfaithful to her? Does she know? Is she trying to make him feel bad? Make him realise what he’ll miss when she inevitably divorces him?

It’s a surreal feeling to catch yourself in the middle of a spiral, truly.

He stares in to her eyes, and he doesn’t respond. She doesn’t push him to, but her frown keeps growing, and there was a sliver of fear in her gaze now as she rubs circles into the exposed skin of his shoulder. His arm tingles.

“Victor?”

He doesn’t say anything for a good minute, and then, unprecedented, like water standing so completely still behind a floodgate that it lulls you into the belief that it does not exist only to come tumbling out when the floodgate is knocked open, the question fell from his lips and made her eyes widen:

“Do you think we would have been better off as friends?”

She looks confused, but not truly hurt. Victor is glad because the idea of separating from her stopped hurting him a long while ago, too.

Now it just makes him panic, and at the very least, he is old enough to understand that’s because this family that he made with her is the only one he knows. This has been his reality for so long that the thought of changing it terrifies him, paralyses his senses.

“I think it’s pointless to think about what-ifs. Especially when you have two kids.”

… and that is the thing, that is it. The kids are a nice scapegoat, easy, clean and validating, even. If Victor wasn’t feeling as particularly bad as he is, she would never have needed to say that out loud, for he would have thought of it himself and bitten off the question before it could come out.

He changed tactics.

“Do you ever resent me for marrying you despite never being in love with you?”

Her mouth falls open. They’ve both known it, they have, but it’s the first time he has said it out loud. There is still no pain in her expression though and Victor pauses to ask himself if he is pushing to catch a glimpse of that pain, after all… if it’s not answers he seeks, but proof that she had suffered as he had.

The answer is a resounding _‘doesn’t matter’_ which is as close to the more honest _‘yes’_ as Victor would let himself get.

“I did. For a long time, I did because it hurt too much not to. In a way I am glad I learned to resent you, because that helped me fall out of love with you, get over you and then… _then_ it stopped hurting.”

He nods.

“What happened, Victor?”

Her voice is firmer now, and in a way, it pisses Victor off. She is fire, this woman. Pure, raging fire. When she doesn’t get her way, she digs her heels in. She is demanding, unwavering, strong and addictive. She is fascinating, the sort of girl one wrote poetry about.

He has never been the right person for her, and for some reason that is a new realisation. Time had lowered the shroud on his own mistreatment of her, and left him feeling sore and sorry for himself when she began retaliating. She is the bad wife, the bad mom. She is not right for him.

… but at least she had tried to be, which is more than he can say about himself.

This clarity is new, very new. This perspective is new. He has known he has been an asshole, but it’s like for the first time, his brain is recognising that his past actions are less about him being a horrible human being and more about the person who was hurt by him being a horrible human being.

It’s like, for the first time he can see beyond the fact that _he hurt,_ and understand that _she was hurt._

Which is not to say, her behaviour was correct. She is no saint, but something inside him comes to rest when he finally accepts that he is partly to blame for the way things have turned out in this house.

He wonders what has brought about this change, but no, that is incorrect for he already knows what did.

He has seen Yuri look angry, scared, frustrated and so many other things, so many times already but the pain and disbelief on his son’s face the night before was new, and far more cutting than anything else could ever be.

Yuri had looked like his entire world had crumbled around him. He had looked betrayed and helpless. It rankled him.

Sleep hadn’t evaded Victor last night, frustrated with himself as he was, but when he woke up this morning, he could see a lot of things he had refused to, till then.

For instance, he can see things are really, really bad.

“We need therapy.” He says to her, and wonders why he hasn’t done this before.

“You, me, Yura. All three of us.”

She doesn’t question him, doesn’t oppose him, doesn’t look surprised that he would suggest it. She merely shrugs, and her other hand finds Victor’s arm as well.

“Just as well or we’ll end up fucking up Annushka, too.” 

He nods.

_‘I hate that we did this.’_ He doesn’t say, because in that moment, he feels closer to her than he has in a long, long time.

… because in that moment, he thinks she already knows.

“We were kids, back then.” She reminds him and her voice is back to being gentle.

In the soft morning light, she looks damn near ethereal.

He feels tears pool in his eyes however, when he sees the resignation in her eyes.

_We were kids back then._

She is absolving him of this guilt he is only starting to truly feel, because he is the only one who gets to use that excuse, he knows. He feels strangely overwhelmed, unable to deal with the kindness in her eyes.

She is trying to comfort him, in her patented, hardass, no-nonsense, Angelina way. Victor is struck by how much of her he sees in Yuri everyday, and he truly, truly begins grieving the life they could have had if he had embraced her, loved her instead of driving himself to hate her for something they were both equally responsible for, back then.

She was two years older. She was the one who gave birth.

Flimsy excuses his teenaged brain had latched onto. He hadn’t realised he had bitten off more than he could chew when he assured her he’d be there and that abortion wasn’t the only option and that he’d be there, he’d be there, he’d be there…

They didn’t get an abortion. Yuri came around, and then he refused to be there.

Oh, he was there for his son, alright. Not for her, though. He had essentially abandoned her.

“That isn’t a good enough excuse.”

“You don’t need to make excuses to me.” She says. “You suck. I’ve known that for a while but it doesn’t change facts and the facts are, that we were kids. We had no business having kids. Plus, it’s not like I am angel. I am way worse than you are, Victor but I don’t bother hiding behind excuses, do I?”

He smiles a little. He doesn’t find it funny, really but what she’s saying sounds right and it feels good to smile.

Especially when she smiles back.

“We fucked up. Bad. We keep fucking up. Maybe in worse ways, even, who knows. But we don’t need excuses between us. We don’t believe them, anyways.”

He sighs, and leans into her touch. She circles her arms around his shoulder and they sit in silence for a while, listening to the random sounds outside their bedroom window. Makkachin enters the room after a while and begins licking Angelina’s face. She laughs and Victor pouts when he realises she has been patting his head the exact same way she pats Makka’s.

“Did you talk to Yuri, today?”

It doesn’t look like he has told her. It’s just as well because Victor wants the truth to come from him.

That is another realisation he had woken up with, that he needs to come clean.

“No. He left to sleepover at his friend’s last night. He said they’d go to school together. Otabek Altin is the friend’s name. I have talked to the kid a couple of times. He and Yuri take Annushka and Makka to the park nearly every afternoon. He is a good one. Yuri might have a thing for him.”

That makes Victor laugh.

“Really?”

She laughs, too.

“Yeah! I was pretty surprised, too. Judging by the drawing scandal, I honestly thought shy-looking math nerds were more his type and this Otabek looks _nothing_ like that.”

Victor laughs harder, and then he remembers which shy-looking math nerd Angelina is talking about and his smile drops from his face.

“Oh, and remember that other kid with these ridiculous red highlights in his hair that Yuri used to hang out with a lot back then?”

She smacks his shoulder lightly when he doesn’t respond, too last in the thoughts of huge brown eyes darkening with anger.

“Who?”

“The one we thought Yuri was dating because he kept blushing around him.”

“Kenjirou, yeah I remember. Why he was more energetic than our actual baby girl on a sugar high is beyond me.”

“Yeah, that was his name. So I was reading an article the other day, after the drawing scandal, you know, about teenagers these days fetishising Asian people and for a second, I was honestly scared Yuri might be doing the same.”

Victor scoffs and flicks the underside of Angelina’s chin. She swats his hand away.

“We raised him better than _that_.” He rolls his eyes.

“Yeah” she shakes her head, laughter bubbling at her lips. “Kudos to us for doing the minimum.”

They pretended to clink glasses in silent cheers and then laughed at themselves.

So, annoying, but kind and cheerful, hair dye disasters,” she began counting on her fingers, “intelligent and reserved older men with muted daddy vibes-” Victor chokes, “and motorcycle riding, leather wearing, undercut-having bad boy-esque teenagers are all the sorts of guys he likes. Your son has quite the range.”

“He’d call you gross two hundred times if he hears you say any of that, and then he’d threaten to sacrifice a tiny rodent to Satan in return for a thorough cleansing of his soul.”

Angelina throws her head back laughing and Victor finally sits up to face her.

She looks happy around him, for a change and he glows with pride for a second.

“The penchant for drama comes from you, mister. I don’t know why you’re sounding so accusatory right now.”

Just to make her laugh harder, Victor lifts a hand to his chest and gasps so hard, he breaks out in coughs. She rubs his back, but it doesn’t do much because she is trembling with laughter, anyway.

“I do think we’d have been better off as friends.”

She tells him later, hours later, when he’s sitting in front of a TV, having taken an extremely rare day off.

It doesn’t hurt, or offend him. He has never understood her better.

…

Victor forces himself to get dressed and go out after having lunch with his wife and daughter. There’s something he needs to do that he can’t put off any longer.

Makka looks extremely excited to go out on a walk with Victor. Ever since life became so hectic, walking and exercising the dog had fallen to the kids’ lot. Makka has clearly missed him and he curses himself for having ignored the old girl.

He showers her with so much attention that he forgets they need to go out till Annushka blinks up at him on her way out of the house and into the yard, crayons clutched in one fist and paper in the other, and asks;

“Is Makka being a bad girl? I can help you, papa! I know how to make her move when she is being a bad girl!”

Poodles are very intelligent and Makka immediately turns to Annushka at ‘bad girl’. She stares at the little girl with clearly remorseful eyes, the wag disappearing from her tail and Victor watches in fascination as guilt dawns on the little child’s face.

“Sorry, Makka!” She wails, throwing her supplies onto the floor and drawing the dog into a hug, instead. “Makka is a very good girl, the best girl. I was being mean! I am sorry!”

Victor takes exactly 76 pictures of the two.

Half an hour later, Victor is done showering miniature-Victor in kisses and he and Makkachin finally leave. He is barely out of the house, that he is reaching for his phone.

He gulps when the dial tone starts playing.

He actually gasps when Yuuri picks up, because he really wasn’t expecting him to.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Nikiforov.”

After that night at the club, all the teasing, the flirting, the suggestiveness in Yuuri’s tone, the dryness of his voice now makes Victor hurt way more than he’d have imagined it would.

“Good afternoon, Yuuri.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath and Victor waits for Yuuri to reprimand him for using his first name but he seemingly decides to take the high ground instead, for he doesn’t say anything.

“I, um,” Victor gulps. “I know this is overdue. I should’ve called earlier…-”

“I picked up because I was hoping you were calling to tell me why Yuri didn’t come to school today, since your son carelessly forgot to inform us, not to listen to you babbling nonsense.”

Victor shuts up, taken aback at Yuuri’s rudeness. Even though he knows it is more than warranted, he hadn’t been expecting it.

Then it clicks in. He blinks.

“He has actually taken sick. He is running a high fever.” Covering for Yuri is instinctive, but Victor makes a mental note to call Yuri after this phone call. “I asked him to send in an email and he said he had but he must have been delirious because of the medicine.”

“Alright. I’ll enter it into the register. If he remains absent for more than two days, we require a doctor’s note, as you must know. Thank you for letting me know…-”

“Don’t hang up!” Victor exclaims so loudly that the elderly lady passing him by gives him a look so filthy Victor positively shrinks.

He realises he has been standing in the same spot ever since Yuuri picked upand Makka is tugging against her leash. He resumes walking and listens to Yuuri click his tongue in annoyance.

“What is it?” He bites out.

Victor sighs.

“I just wanted to apologise properly. What happened that night was beyond inappropriate and I am not going to try to make excuses. It was all my fault and I am honestly, terribly sorry that I gave you false hope and…-”

Across the line Yuuri begins laughing like a maniac.

It’s an exaggerated, mocking laugh and Victor almost comes to a stop again.

“You are so horribly self-centred it’s actually pitiful.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, don’t mind me if I don’t. I wanted to fuck you, plain and simple so get over yourself with all this ‘false hope’ nonsense. It’s like you don’t even know what you need to apologise for, you bumbling fool…”

Yuuri carries on his tirade and it becomes obvious to Victor that he’s just trying to protect himself now, not show Victor any vulnerability. He doesn’t know how much of what Yuuri is saying is true but it is clear by the manic quality of his voice that he is overcompensating for the hurt he is not willing to admit he felt that night.

Victor tells himself he’s a scumbag and finally cuts Yuuri off while he is in the middle of calling Victor a vain cockatiel.

“Alright, I get it. I am obtuse and exaggerate my importance, okay. Tell me, then. Tell me what I need to apologise for and I will.”

Yuuri draws up short and Victor actually hears him take in a deep breath. Despite himself, he smiles a little. He’s a scumbag and Yuuri is unwaveringly cute even in the throes of anger.

“You made me hang all over a married man like a fucking two-bit, no-good, home-wrecker _in front of_ my best friend’s boyfriend, whom he absolutely adores and _really_ wants to have him in his life, by the way, and god knows who else! You humiliated me and made me feel like I was actual trash and I can’t imagine what everyone is thinking about me now. Oh my god, they must have all laughed at me behind my back and what does Chris think of me now? Fuck, what if this reflects on Phichit badly? Have you thought about that? Of course you haven’t! Because you only think about yourself…-”

Yuuri descended into another heated rant about Victor’s various faults and Victor let him ramble as he took a second to take everything in.

Yes, he hadn’t, in fact, spared a thought to what everyone must think of Yuuri, now. Yes, he hadn’t even considered the humiliation Yuuri must have been feeling. Again, yes, he was a scumbag.

“-… and the worst part is I am not even surprised,” Yuuri is still rambling, but his voice is calming down now, descending from the high of passion. “I should have never done this, never tried to hit on a _student’s father,_ oh my god. I have the most horrid taste in men, I _know_ that. Like, I’ve always known that.” Victor winces. He doesn’t think he’s _horrid._ “Somehow, _somehow_ , I am always picking the worst ones, the sort of dudes who land me in all sorts of trouble and then you come along looking the way you do and helping me instead of causing problems for me… and I just thought ‘hey, this is someone worth giving a shot to’ which was clearly a huge ass mistake because you’re…-”

Once again, Victor’s steps come to a halt as the weight in his chest keeps on increasing. He really fucked this one up.

Impossible as he had previously thought it to be, the guilt only increases.

Yuuri seems to have hit the end of his tirade however, for his voice is soft with exhaustion now. Any minute now, he is going to decide he has said his piece, and Victor will get to apologise and that might as well be the last time they ever talk to each other.

The very thought sends Victor’s gut twisting into tight knots that make him exhale shakily. It silences Yuuri and Victor mentally kicks himself.

“Are you done?” He asks this time, because maybe there’s still a way to salvage this. Maybe if Victor grovels enough, Yuuri would agree to remain friends with him. Unlikely as it seems, Victor knows for a fact that they enjoy talking to each other. They click in a way people seldom do. Maybe… just maybe that would mean something to Yuuri. They could call a truce and decide to put this behind each other…

Victor shakes his head. _What is he even thinking?_ There is no way he can be around Yuuri if he wants to stay faithful to his wife which is something in itself because Victor has known plenty of other smart, pretty people and yet no one proved to be as much of a temptation as his son’s maths teacher.

Victor’s statement seems to renew Yuuri’s vigour for he begins, “No, as a matter of fact I have a lot-” but then he pauses, takes a deep breath and audibly calms himself.

“You know what? Never mind. You must have gotten the gist of it by now. Just… don’t call me again, okay?”

Victor feels his heart pick up pace.

“Listen, Yuuri, no. I am sorry, I am so fucking sorry. Just give me a chance to make it up to you, alright? However you want me to. Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it. Whatever you name.”

Yuuri laughs. Its a hurt, little sound that nearly brings tears to Victor’s eyes. _Why_ is he being so affected by this, anyway?

Victor isn’t stupid, neither is a high schooler. He knows why, of course he knows why. It’s scary.

“Can you make me forget everything you made me feel that night, then?” Yuuri asks.

Victor’s first instinct is to protest. He doesn’t want Yuuri to forget anything about that night, about the way they had danced and sat too close, the way Victor had fed Yuuri those spring rolls or the sheepish laugh they had shared when they realised the bartender overheard them. Without realising, the memories had become precious, and been filed away by Victor into a _‘hurts; don’t open’_ box in the back of his head. Out of pure guilt, he couldn’t revisit them without awakening a dull ache inside his heart, but nevertheless, he loathed the thought of being rid of them and couldn’t understand how Yuuri could want to forget anything about that night.

“So I thought.” Yuuri says. “Goodbye, Victor.”

This time Yuuri hangs up despite Victor’s protests and when the line clicks shut, Victor feels his knees tremble. He realises his head hurts.

It’s a pretty gloomy walk after that. Once they get back home, even Makka seems too eager to be rid of Victor’s pitiful aura.

…

Victor calls Yuri, and it goes straight to voicemail. He tries about three more times but ends up directed to voicemail every time. Giving up, he decides to leave a voicemail after all.

“I know you didn’t go to school today even though you told your mom you would. I covered for you and I am not mad. I am not gonna demand an explanation or anything from you. Just pick up, I wanna make sure you’re fine. If you don’t, I am going to have to get her to call you after all and then you can try convincing her how skipping school without sending in a prior notice wasn’t a big deal.”

The response is instant this time.

Victor’s phone rings and it’s Yuri. He quickly puts it to his ear, readying himself for possibly yet more screaming.

“What do you want?”

Yuri sounds completely exhausted, but also more relaxed than he has sounded in years. It hurts Victor to know that a night away from this house has had such a huge effect on his son.

“I already told you what I want.”

Yuri sighs.

“I am fine, okay? So you can stop bothering me. Honestly, who even told you I didn’t go in today? Katsuki? What you sick freaks whisper about me to each other once you’re done…-”

“Yuri, shut up.”

Yuri is so surprised that he does.

Victor sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“I didn’t sleep with him. I was never going to. I fucked up, with you, with your mom, _and_ with him and he’s just as mad at me as you are right now, if that helps any.”

Yuri hums. He doesn’t sound too convinced.

“It does, actually” he says eventually. “if he has any fucking self-respect he won’t talk to you ever again and just the mere thought of that is working wonders for my mood right now.”

“Do you need me to come pick you up from wherever you are?” Victor changes the topic.

“No, I am not coming back tonight.”

Victor frowns.

“This is the first time I am hearing of this.”

“Yeah. Because I didn’t tell you. Don’t call me again.”

Yuri is the second person to tell Victor to not call him in just as many hours, and he wonders how he is such a horrible person, after all.

How he always ends up being such a horrible person despite trying his best to do everything right for everyone.

He sighs, switches off his cell just because he takes some sort of vindictive pleasure in blocking lines of communication (for two people who already don’t wanna talk to him; he remembers and groans) and goes downstairs to where Angelina and Annushka are cuddled up on the couch, with Angelina repeating the multiplication table of 2 in order to help Annushka memorise it.

They both look at him as he comes to sit down beside them. Angelina smiles, but doesn’t say anything and taking her lead, he sits in silence beside her, watching his daughter struggle to get the table right and giggle when her parents reward her with kisses every time she does.

Victor is more at peace then he has ever been inside this house.

It is mortifying to see that the moment he lowered his guard, Angelina rushed in to try to help him, without complaints, without her usual snippiness. One good, decent conversation and Victor already feels way better than he ever remembers feeling around her.

Which is not to say all of their issues have magically been resolved, but when he stopped trying to push blame around and just decided to shoulder his own share of it instead, Angelina immediately stepped up.

She was just being petty, because he had been bitter for way too long.

They are both immature assholes. Kids, still.

That night, they make love for the first time in what seems to have been longer than eternity.

It is good.

It’s just… _good._

… because orgasms are always good and Angelina is actually drop-dead gorgeous.

It is like going through the works, mostly because being able to stand each other is a relatively new thing for both of them. It doesn’t feel like a lot or like too little. It just is. It’s sex.

Lying next to her, sweaty and heaving, Victor can’t help thinking about the way sparks had run up his entire arm when Yuuri’s lips brushed against his fingertips that night. He doesn’t feel very guilty for it.

It’s strange how the human mind works, truly because the only thought running around and bouncing off of the inside of his brain with all the righteous conviction of a thousand universal truths, right now, is that he wants to split up with her.

Immediately, he feels horrible.

_After he almost cheated on her too?_

He really, truly is scum.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”, he whispers into the dark, because at the moment they feel closer than they ever have and he hopes that would make it easier for her to hear the truth.

… the truth about that night, of course. No way is he going to divorce her after it finally feels like they might get somewhere. Victor is used to being in a loveless marriage anyway. Maybe this time, he’d make it easier for everyone and treat her the way she deserves instead of fucking up something that could have been a great partnership if not the most romantic of relationships.

A gentle snore is the only thing he receives in response, however.

Looking down at the blonde head resting on his chest, Victor grins.

_This isn’t all that bad,_ he tries to tell himself and resists the urge to imagine someone else beside him instead.

_This isn’t all that bad. This is actually pretty good._

He lays awake, eyes staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling.

_This isn’t bad at all. Seriously Victor, you are very lucky._

No matter how hard he tries, he can’t get to sleep.

… not until he lets himself indulge his heart, at least.

… not until he squints till its easy to imagine the body curving against his is harder, taller, firmer and the hair tickling his skin shorter and darker.

He wants Yuuri.

_God,_ how he wants Yuuri.

He finally drifts off to sleep, a small smile on his lips, arm tight around shoulders his sleep-addled brain is convinced aren’t his wife’s.

…

Waking up all warm and flush, cuddled up against her is something he had nearly forgotten feels so good, but it does.

She brushes a kiss against his forehead and he mirrors the smile he can feel on her lips.

“How are you today?”, she whispers.

“Way better.” He grouches out.

“If only I’d known all it’d take to lift you out of that weird funk was some sex…” she sighs.

He laughs in response, tightens his arms around her waist and flips them over.

They tussle around for a while, and it’s fun.

_It is._

“What’s on your mind, Victor?” She asks when he emerges from the washroom, a towel around his waist and his hair dripping wet.

“What do you mean?” He asks.

She leans up from where she is still naked on the bed. She had promised to drive Annushka to school today so he could catch up on the missed leg day in the gym, but she still has about an hour and fifteen minutes till then and it makes Victor somewhat jealous. 

“I know believing nobody understands you and that you’re super mysterious is a big part of why you like yourself, but I recognise that face. I know when you’re toying with an idea in the back of your head and you don’t even know it and considering the conversation we had yesterday I can’t help but wonder…”

She trails off, her brilliant green eyes shifting away from his with sudden bashfulness. For a second, Victor is terrified she is going to suggest having another kid.

She doesn’t look up at him again, though and she doesn’t resume talking.

“Nevermind.”, she eventually sighs.

“I don’t want another child.” Victor blurts out, like the idiot he is.

She is startled enough that she looks up at him with a frown.

“Well… okay. Neither do I.”

Victor heaves a sigh of relief.

It drags a smile from Angelina, who still looks weirdly somber from some reason and Victor matches it with his own, before moving over to his closet.

“Well then, what did you wanna say?” He asks when she doesn’t say anything. 

“It’s nothing… or at least, it’s nothing that needs to be said right now, or anything I should be saying at all. I will just let you stew and you can come find me when you’re ready.”

Victor frowns, mind grasping at the first explanation for this bizarre statement that he can find.

“I’ve already told you I am pretty kink-positive except for urine play.”

She throws a pillow at him.

…

Victor is in his office and looking up suitable therapists when his phone rings.

“Hello?” He asks absent-mindedly, eyes still scouring through the details on his computer screen.

“Is this Victor Nikiforov?”

A voice he has never heard before asks. The calm graveness of the tone immediately has Victor sitting up straight even though a work call beginning with those same words is extremely common.

“Speaking.”

“Your number was given to me by your son’s friend who accompanied him to the hospital…”

Victor feels something cave inside his chest.

“My son?” He breathes out.

“Yes.” The voice softens, as if its all too used to speaking to distraught people. “Yuri Plisetsky. He is presently admitted in City Hospital. He is out of danger, but you need to come down immediately.”

Victor finds himself flying out of his office before the person has even finished speaking.

“What happened?” He asks, his voice a little too loud. His heart races inside his chest and for a second he debates getting a cab to the hospital because he honestly doesn’t feel like he is in enough control to drive.

“Alcohol poisoning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment and lemme know what you thought???
> 
> Come scream at me about YOI on [my Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/shamelessllamapeanutthing)

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and lemme know what you thought???
> 
> Come scream at me about YOI on [my Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/shamelessllamapeanutthing)


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